GIFT   OF 


H 


THE 


IN 


BY 

MAX  HEINDEL 


THIRD     EDITION 


POSTFREE 
INTERNATIONAL  HEADQUARTERS 

S00trrurtatt  3WUmiHljtp 

Mount  Ecdesia 
OCEANSIDE  CALIFORNIA 


L.  N.  FOWLER 

7  IMPERIAL  ARCADE,  LUDGATE  CIRCUS 
LONDON 


' 

- 


COPYRIGHT,  1922 

BY 
MRS.  MlX  HEINDEL 


All  rights,  including  translation,  reserved.  Permission 

to  copy  or  translate  will  be  readily  given  upon 

.application  to  author. 

Gir 


I 

' 

' 
.     :-&i:L.~ 

PARTIAL  LIST  OF  SUBJECTS. 

, 
SECTION  1.    LIFE  ON  EARTH. 

Social  Conditions. 
Marriage. 
-Children. 

Sleep  and  Dreams. 
Health  and  Disease! 

SECTION  II.    LIFE  AFTER  DEATH. 

The  Scienee-of  Beata^ 

Cremation. 

Purgatory. 

The  First  Heaven. 

The  Second  Heaven. 

The  Third  Heaven. 

Guardian  Angels. 

SECTION  in.    REBIRTH. 

The  Law  of  Rebirth. 
The  Law  of  Causation. 
Transmigration. 

SECTION  IV.    THE  BIBLE  TEACHINGS. 
The  Creation. 
The  Fall. 

The  Immaculate  Conception. 
Sayings  of  Christ. 

SECTION  V.    SPIRITUALISTIC  PHENOMENA. 
Mediumship. 
Obs  ession. 
Materialization- 

I 


4  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

SECTION  VI.    CLAIRVOYANCE. 

Dangers  of  Psychism. 
True  Spiritual  Unfoldment. 
Initiation. 

SECTION  VII.    ASTROLOGY. 

True  and  False  Astrology. 
Prayer  and  Astrology. 
Freewill  and  Astrology. 

SECTION  VIII.     ANIMALS. 

Their  Life  Here  and  Hereafter. 

SECTION  IX.    MISCELLANEOUS. 

SECTION  X.    CLASSIFIED  LIST  OF  QUESTIONS  AND  INDEX. 


LIST  OF  DIAGRAMS 

PAGE. 

The  Supreme  Being,  God  and  Other  Gods 98 

A  Life  Cycle 132 

The  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit 260 

The  Path  of  the  Unused  Sex-Currents 304 

As  Above,  so  Below 420 

Man 's  Past,  Present  and  Future  Form.  . . 421 

The  Four  Kingdoms : . .  .'." 422 

The  Constitution  of  the  Earth 423 

The  Seven  Worlds 424 

Diagram  Showing  the  Comparative  Reality  of  the  Visible  and 

Invisible  Worlds  by  Using  a  Stereopticon  as  Illustration.  425 

The  Seven  World-Periods 426 

The  Seven  Days  of  Creation 342 

Four  Great  Initiations. . .                       .  .  .  .  427 


'     -  '  1*HC    • 
• 

: 

A  WORD  OF  EXPLANATION. 

The  .questions  contained  in  this  book  have  been  asked 
of  .the  writer  after  lectures  delivered  by, .him  in  various 
cities,  and,. in.  mo$t  cases,  ;th.e  questions  reveal  a  certain 
knowledge  of.,  the  subject  on  the, part  of , the  inquirer. 

For,  the  benefit  of,  those  who  are  not  Jamiliar  with  The 
Rosicrucian  Cosmo-Conception,  it  may  be  well  to  give  the 
following  information  concerning  the, philosophy  and  the 
terms  used.  With  that,  key,  it , will ,. be  ea.sy  for  anyone  to 
understand  the  answers  to  the  questions.  It  may  also  be 
in  place  to  state  at  this  point  that  each  question  has  been 
answered  regardless  of  what  has  been  said  in  answer  to 
any  other  question,  so  that  each  answer  is  complete  in  itself. 
This  has  occasioned  repetition  of  some  things  said  in 
answer  to  one  question  when  replying  to  another  which  is 
similar,  but  it  will  be  found  that  in  all  cases  where  there  is 
such  repetition  it  presents  a  new  aspect  of  the  subject, 
so  that  the  writer  has  no  apology  to  make,  for  he  considers 
the  method  used  of  greater  value  than  a  reference  to  some 
other  answer  which  perhaps  the  inquirer  might  not  have 
time  to  look  up. 

The  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  teaches  that  man  is  a  com- 
plex being  who  possesses : 

(1)  A  Dense  Body,  which  is  the  visible  instrument  he 
uses  here  in  this  world  to  fetch  and  carry;  the  body  we 
ordinarily  think  of  as  the  whole  man. 

(2)  A  Vital  Body,  which  is  made  of  Ether  and  per- 
vades the  visible  body  as  ether  permeates  all  other  forms, 

5 


6  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

except  that  human  beings  specialize  a  greater  amount  of  the 
universal  ether  than  other  forms.  That  ethereal  body  is 
our  instrument  for  specializing  the  vital  energy  of  the  sun. 

(3)  A  Desire  Body,  which   is  our  emotional  nature. 
This  finer  vehicle  pervades  both  the  vital  and  dense  bodies. 
It  is  seen  by  clairvoyant  vision  to  extend  about  16  inches 
tfutside  our  visible  body,  which  is  located  in  the  center 
of  this  ovoid  cloud  as  the  yolk  is  In  the  center  of  an  egg. 

(4)  The  Mind,  which  is  a  mirror,  reflecting  the  outer 
world  and  enabling  the  Ego  to  transmit  its  commands  as 
thought  and  word,  also  to  compel  action. 

The  Ego  is  the  threefold  spirit  which  uses  these  vehicles 
to  gather 'experience  in  the  school  of  life. 


SECTION  I 

Questions  dealing  with 

LIFE  ON  EARTH 


QUESTION  No.  1. 

//  we  were  pure  spirit  and  a  part-  of  an  Alli-kno.wingi 
God,  why  was  it  necessary  for  us  to  take  this  long  pil- 
grimage of  sin  and  sorrow  through  matter? 


Answer:  fn  the  beginning  of  manifestation,  God  differ- 
entiated within  Himself  a  multitude  of  potential  spiritual 
intelligences,, as  sparks  are  emitted  by  a  fire.  [These  spir- 
itual intelligences  were  thus  potential  flames  :or  ,  to  s,  but 
they  are  not  yet  fires,  for,  though  endowed  with  , the  all- 
consciousness  of  God,  they  lacked  se//-consciousness ;  being1 
potentially  omnipotent  as  God,  they  lacked  dynamic  power 
available  for  use  at  any  moment  according  to  their  will ; 
and  in  order  that  these  qualities  might:  be  evolved  it  was 
imperative  that  they  should  go  through  .matter.! ; Therefore, 
during  involution  each  Divine  Spark  was  encased  in  vari- 
ous vehicles  of  sufficient  density  to  shut  off  the  outer 
world  from  their  consciousness.  Then  the  spirit  within, 
no  longer  able  to  contact  the  without,  turns  and  finds 
itself.  With  wakening  ^//-consciousness  comes  the  spirit's 
struggle  to  free  itself  from  its  prison,  and  during  evolu- 
tion the  various  vehicles  which  the  spirit  possesses  will  be 
spiritualized  into  soul,  so  that,  at  the  end  of  manifesta- 
tion, the  spirit  will  not  only  have  gained  se//-consciousness 
but  also  soul-power. 

There  is  a  tendency  upon  the  part  of  most  people  to 
believe  that  all'that  is  is  the  result  of  something  else,  leav- 

9 


10  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

ing  no  place  for  any  original  new  building.  Those  who 
study  life  usually  speak  only  of  involution  and  evolution; 
those  who  study  the  form,  namely,  the  modern  scientists, 
are  concerned  with  evolution  only,  but  the  most  advanced 
among  them  are  now  beginning  to  find  another  factor, 
which  they  have  called  epigenesis.  Already,  In  1757,  Cas- 
par Wolff  issued  his  Theorea  Generationis,  wherein  he 
showed  that  in  the  development  of  the  ovum,  there  are 
a  series  of  new  buildings  not  at  all  foreshown  by  what 
has  gone  before,  and  Haeckel,  indorsing  this  work,  says 
that  nowadays  we  are  no  longer  justified  in  calling  epi- 
genesis a  theory.  For  it  is  a  fact  which  we  may  demon- 
strate,  in  the  case  of  the  lower  forms  where  the  changes 
are  rapid,  under  a  microscope.  Since  the  mind  was  given 
to  man,  it  is  this  original  creative  impulse,  epigenesis, 
which  has  been  the  cause  of  all  our  development.  Truly  do 
we  build  upon  that  which  has  been  already  created,  but 
there  is  also  something  new  due  to  the  activity  of  the 
spirit,  and  thus  it  is  that  we  become  creators,  for  if  we  only 
imitated  that  which  had  already  been  laid  out  for  us  by 
God  or  Angel,  it  wouM  never  be  possible  for  us  to  become 
creative  intelligences;  we  would  simply  be  imitators.  And 
even  though  we  make  mistakes,  it  may  be  said  that  we 
often  learn  much  more  by  our  mistakes  than  by  our 
successes.  The  sin  and  the  suffering  which  the  inquirer 
speaks  about  are  merely  'the  result  of  the  mistakes  we 
make,  and  their  impression  upon  our  consciousness  causes 
us  to  be  active  along  other  lines  which  are  found  to  be 
good— -that  is  to  say, 'in^harmony  with  nature.  Thus  this 
world  is  a  training  school  and  not  a  vale  of  tears  wherein 
we  have  been  placed  by  a  capricious  God.  (See  Ques- 
tion Xo.  9.) 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  H 

QUESTION  No.  2. 

'  7/  "God  made  matt  a  little  lower  than  the  Angels"  how 
is  it  possible  that  man  is  ultimately  to  become  their  supe- 
rior in  the  Spiritual  World? 


Answer:  This  question  reveals  a  misapprehension  upon 
the  part- of  the  inquirer.  It  has  never  Been  so  stated  in  the 
Rosicrucian  teachings,  but  something  has  been  said  which 
may  have  been  so  misconstrued.  The  fact  of  the- matter  is 
that  evolution  moves  in  a  spiral  and  there  is  never  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  same  condition.  Angels  are  an  earlier  stream 
of  evolution  who  were  human  in  a  previous  incarnation  or 
the  earth,  called  the  Moon  Period  among  Rosicrucians, 
The  Archangels  were  the  humanity  of  the  Sun  Period 
and  the  Lords  of  Mind,  called  by  Paul  the  "Powers'  of 
Darkness,"  were  the  humanity  of  the  dark  Saturn  Period. 
We  are  the  humanity  of  the  fourth  period  of -the  present 
scheme  of  manifestation,  the  Earth  Period.  As  all  beings 
in  the  universe  are  progressing,  the  humanity  of  the  pre- 
vious periods  have  also  progressed  so  that  they;  are  now 
at  a  higher  stage  than  they  were  when  they  were  human — 
th^ey  are  superhuman.  Therefore,  it  is  perfectly  true  that 
God  made  man  a  little  lower  than  the  Angels.  But  as 
everything  is  in  a  state  of  spiral  progression,  it  is  also 
true  that  our  present  humanity  is  a  higher  and  more 
evolved  humanity  than  the  Angels  were;  and  that  the 
Angels  were  a  higher  order  of  humanity  than  the  Archan- 
gels were  when  they  were  human.  In  the  next  step  we 
shall  attain  something  like  the  stage  of  the  Angels  at 
the  present  time,  but  we  shall  be  superior  to  what  they 
are  now 


12  EOSICRUCIAN'  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No  3. 

Why  should  it  be  "necessary  for  us  to  come  into  this 
physical  existence?  Could  we  not  have  learned  the  same 
lessons  without  being  imprisoned  and  limited  by  the  dense 
conditions  of  the  material  world  ? 


Answer:  The  New  Testament  was  written  in  Greek 
originally,  and  the  word  Logos  means  both  word  and  the 
thought  whieh  precedes  the  word,  so  that  when  John  tells 
us  in  th%  first '"chapter- of  his  Gospel  that  "In  the  beginning 
was  the  word,  and  the  word  was  with  God,  and  the  word 
was  God,"  we  may  also  translate  that  verse:  "In  the 
beginning  was  the  thought,  and  the  word  was  with  God, 
and  God  was  the  word."  Everything  exists  by  virtue  of 
that  fact  (the  word).  In  that  is  "life." 

Everything  that  exists  in  the  universe  was  first  a  thought, 
that  thought  then  manifesting  as  a  word,  a  sound,  which 
built  all  forms  and  itself  manifested  as  the  life  within 
those  forms.  Th&t  is  the  process  of  creation,  and  man, 
who  was  made  in  the 'image  of  God,  creates  in  the  same  way 
to  a  certain  extent.  He  has  the  capability  of  thinking ;  he 
may  voice  his  thoughts  and  in  that  way,  where  he  is  not  ca- 
pable of  carrying  out  his  ideas  alone,  he  may  secure  the 
help  of  others  to  realize  them.  But  a  time  is  coming  when  he 
will  create  directly  by  the  word  of  his  mouth,  and  he  is 
now  learning  to  create  by  other  means,  so  that  when 
in  time' lie  becomes  able  to  use  his  word  to  create  directly 
lie  will  know  how.  l"hat  training  is  absolutely  necessary. 
At  the  present  time  he  would  make  many  mistakes.  Be- 
sides, he  is  not  yet  good— he  would  bring  into  being 
demoniac  creations. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  13 

In  the  earliest  dawn  of  man's  endeavor,  he  used  the 
solids;  muscular  force  was  his  only  means  of  performing 
work,  and  from  bones  and  stones  which  he  picked  up  from 
the  ground,  he  shaped  his  first  crude  instruments  to  be 
wielded  by  his  arm.  Then  came  a  time  when  in  a  rude 
dug-out  he  first  trusted  himself  to  the  waters;  a  liquid 
and  the  water  wheel  was  the  first  machinery.  The  liquid 
is  already  much  stronger  than  the  solid.  A  wave  will  raze 
the  decks  of  a  ship,  tear  out  the  masts  and  twist  the  stout- 
est iron  bar  as  if  it  were  a  thin  wire ;  but  water  power  is  a 
stationary  force  and  therefore  limited  to  work  in  its  imme- 
diate vicinity.  When  man  learned  to  use  the  still  more 
subtle  force  which  we  call  air,  it  became  possible  for  him 
to  erect  windmills  in  any  place  to  do  his  work  and  sailing 
vessels  brought  the  whole  world  into  communication. 
Thus,  man's  next  step  in  unfoldment  was  achieved  by  the 
use  of  a  force  still  subtler  than  water  and  more  universally 
applicable  than  that  element.  But  wind  was  fickle  and  not 
to  be  depended  upon ;  therefore,  the  advancement  in  human 
civilization  achieved  by  its  use  paled  into  insignificance 
when  man  discovered  how  to  utilize  the  still  more  subtle 
gas  which  is  called  steam,  for  that  can  be  made  anywhere 
and  everywhere,  and  the  progress  of  the  world  has  been 
enormous  since  its  advent.  There  is,  however,  the  draw- 
back to  its  utility  that  steam-power  requires  cumbersome 
transmission  machinery.  This  drawback  is  practically  elim- 
inated by  using  a  still  subtler  force,  more  readily  trans- 
missible; electricity,  which  is  altogether  invisible  and 
intangible. 

Thus,  we  see  that  the  progress  of  man  in  the  past  has 
depended  upon  the  utilization  of  forces  of  increasing 
subtlety,  each  force  in  the  scale  being  more  readily  capable 
of  transmission  than  the  ones  previously  available,  and  we 


14  EOSICRtJGIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

can  readily  realize  that  further  progress  depends  upon  the 
discovery  of  still  finer  forces  transmissible  with  still  greater 
•facility.  We  know  that  that  which  we  call  wireless  teleg- 
raphy is  accomplished 'without  even  the  -use  of  wires,  bttt 
even  that  system  is  not  ideal,  for  it  depends  upon  energy 
generated  in  a  central  plant,  which  is  stationary.  It  in- 
volves the  use  of  costly  machinery  and  is,  therefore,  out 
of  reach  of  the  majority.  The  ideal  force  would  be  a  power 
which  man  could  generate  from  himself  at  any  moment 
without  machinery. 

A  few  decades  ago  Jules  Verne  thrilled  us  with  delight 
when  he  conjured  up  before  our  imagination  the  submarine 
boat,  the  trip  around  the  earth  in  eighty  days,  etc.  Today 
the  things  that  he  pictured  have  become  facts  surpassing 
even  his  imagination,  and  the  day  will  come  when  we  shall 
have  available  for  use  a  power  plant  such  as  spoken  of 
above.  Bulwer  Lytton,  in  his  ''Coming  Kace,"  has  pic- 
tured to  us  a  force  called  "Vril  "  which  certain  imaginary 
beings  are  possessed  of  and  which  they  can  use  to  propel 
themselves  over  land,  through  the  air  and  in  various  other 
ways.  Such  a  force  is  latent  within  every  one  of  us,  and 
we  speak  of  it  sometimes  as  emotion.  We  feel  its  far-reach- 
ing power  at  times  as  temper  when  it  is  unleashed,  and  we 
say  "a  man  has  lost  control  of  himself."  No  amount  of 
work  can  so  tire  the  physical  body  and  wreck  it  as  when  the 
enormous  energy  of  the  desire  body  is  let  loose  in  a  fit 
of  temper.  Usually,  at  the  present  time,  this  enormous 
force  sleeps,  and  it  is  well  that  it  should  be  so  until  we 
have  learned  to  use  it  by  means  of  thought,  which  is  a 
still  more  subtle  force.  This  world  is  a  school  to  teach 
us  how  to  think  and  feel  aright  so  that  we  may  become 
qualified  to  use  these  two  subtle  forces — the  power  of 
thought  and  the  power  of  emotion. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  15 

'  An  illustration  will  make  clear  how  this  world  serves  that 
•purpose.  An  inventor  gets  an  idea.  The  idea  is  not  yet 
&  thought,  it  is  but  as  it  were  a  flash  which  has  not  ye1 
>i  ok  en  shape,  but  gradually  he  visualizes  it  in  mind  stun* 
He  forms  in  his  thought  a  machine,  and  before  his  mental 
•vision  that  machine  appears  with  the  wheels  revolving  thi« 
way  and  that,  as  necessary  to  accomplish  the  required  work. 
Then  he  commences  to  draw  the  plans  for  the  machine,  and 
•even  at  that  stage  of  concretion  it  will  most  certainly 
appear  .that  modifications  are  necessary.  Thus  we  see  that 
already  the  physical  conditions  show  the  inventor  where 
Ms  thought  was  not  correct.  When  he  builds  the  machine 
in  appropriate  material  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
work,  there  are  usually  more  modifications  necessary.  Per- 
haps, he  may  be;  obliged  to  throw  the  first  machine  away, 
entirely  rearrange  his  conception  and  build  a  new  machine. 
Thus  the  concrete  physical  conditions  have  enabled  him  to 
detect  the  flaw  in  his  reasoning;  they  force  him  to  make  the 
necessary  modifications  in  his  original  thought  to  bring  out 
a  machine  that  will  do  the  work.  Had  there  been  only 
a  World  of  Thought,  he  would  not  have  known  that  he 
had  made  a  mistake,  but  the  concrete  physical  conditions 
show  him  where  his  thought  was  wrong. 

The  Physical  World  teaches  the  inventor  to  think  aright, 
and  his  successful  machines  are  the  embodiments  of  right 
thought. 

In  mercantile,  social  or  philanthropic  endeavors,  the 
same  principle  holds  good.  If  our  ideas  concerning  the 
various  matters  in  life  are  wrong,  they  are  corrected  when 
brought  into  so-called  practical  uses  and  thus  this  world 
is  an  absolute  necessity  to  teach  us  how  to  wield  the  power 
of  thought  and  desire,  these  forces  being  held  in  leash  to  a 
great  extent  at  the  present  time  by  our  material  conditions. 


16  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

But  as  time  goes  on  and  we  learn  to  think  aright  more  and 
more,  we  shall  at  last  obtain  such  a  power  of  thought  that 
we  shall  be  able  to  think  the  right  thought  at  once  in  every 
case  without  experimenting,  and  then  we  shall  also  be  able 
to  speak  our  thought  into  actual  being,  as  a  thing.  There 
was  a  time,  in  the  far,  far  past,  when  man  was  yet  a  spir- 
itual being  and  when  the  conditions  of  earth  were  more 
plastic.  Then  he  was  taught  directly  by  the  Gods  to  use 
the  word  as  a  means  of  creation  and  he  worked  thus  forma- 
tively  on  the  animals  and  the  plants.  We  are  told  in  the 
Bible  that  "God  brought  the  animals  to  man  and  he  named 
them."  This  naming  was  not  simply  calling  a  lion  a  lion, 
but  it  was  a  formative  process  that  gave  man  a  power  over 
the  thing  he  named,  and  it  was  only  when  selfishness, 
cruelty  and  unbridled  anger  unfitted  him  for  the  master- 
ship that  the  word  of  power  spoken  of  by  the  masons  was 
lost.  When  holiness  shall  have  again  taken  the  place  of 
profanity,  the  word  will  be  found  again  and  will  be  the 
creative  power  of  the  divine  man  in  a  future  age. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  17 

QUESTION  No.  4. 

//  this  earth  life  is  so  important  and  really  the  basis 
of  all  our  soul  growth,  the  latter  resulting  from  the  experi- 
ences we  gain  here,  why  is  our  earth  life  so  short  in  com- 
parison with  the  life  in  the  Inner  Worlds,  approximating 
a  thousand  years  between  two  earth  lives? 


Answer:  All  that  is  in  this  world  which  has  been  made 
by  the  hand  of  man  is  crystallized  thought;  the  chairs  upon 
which  we  sit,  the  houses  in  which  we  live,  the  various  con- 
veniences, such  as  telephone,  steamship,  locomotive,  etc. 
were  once  a  thought  in  the  mind  of  man.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  that  thought,  the  thing  would  never  have  appeared. 
In  similar  manner,  the  trees,  the  flowers,  the  mountains 
and  the  seas  are  the  crystallized  thought  forms  of  the 
nature  forces.  Man,  when  he  leaves  this  body  after  death 
and  enters  the  Second  Heaven,  becomes  one  with  those 
nature  forces ;  he  works  under  the  direction  of  the  creative 
hierarchies,  making  for  himself  the  environment  which  is 
necessary  for  his  next  step  in  unfoldment.  There  he  builds 
in  "mind  stuff,"  the  archetypes  of  the  land  and  the  sea; 
he  works  upon  the  flora  and  the  fauna;  he  creates  every- 
thing in  his  environment  as  thought  forms,  and  as  he 
changes  the  conditions,  so  they  appear  when  he  is  reborn. 

But  working  things  out  in  mind  stuff  is  very  different 
from  working  things  out  in  the  concrete.  At  the  present 
time  we  are  very  poor  thinkers,  and  therefore  it  takes 
an  enormous  period  of  time  for  us  to  shape  the  thoughv 
forms  in  the  second  heaven ;  then,  also,  we  must  wait  a  con- 
siderable time  before  these  thought  forms  have  crystallized 
into  the  actual  dense  physical  environment  to  which  we 


18  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

are  to  come  back.  Therefore,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should 
stay  in  the  Heaven  World  for  a  much  longer  time  than  we 
remain  in  the  earth  life.  When  we  have  learned  to  think 
aright,  we  shall  be  able  to  create  things  here  in  the  Physical 
World  in  a  much  shorter  time  than  it  now  takes  to  labori- 
ously form  them.  Neither  will  it  be  necessary  then  to  stay 
out  of  earth  life  as  long  as  at  the  present  time. 


QUESTION  No.  5. 

How  long  will  it  be  before  we  can  do  without  these  physi- 
cal bodies,  and  function  altogether  in  the  Spiritual  Worlds 
again  ? 


Answer:  This  question  reveals  a  state  of  mind  which  is 
all  too  common  among  people  who  have  become  acquainted 
with  the  fact  that  we  possess  spiritual  bodies  in  which 
we  may  move  through  space  with  lightning  rapidity,  bodies 
which  do  not  need  the  material  raiment  and,  therefore, 
will  require  no  care  upon  the  part  of  their  owners.  These 
people  long  then  for  the  time  when  they  may  grow  such 
figurative  wings  and  shed  this  "low  and  vile  mortal  coil" 
altogether. 

Such  a  state  of  mind  is  extremely  unfortunate.     We 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  19 

should  be  very  thankful  for  the  material  instrument  which 
we  have,  for  that  is  the  most  valuable  of  all  our  vehicles. 
While  it  is  perfectly  true  that  our  physical  body  is  the  low- 
est of  all  our  vehicles,  it  is  also  a  fact  that  this  vehicle  is 
the  most  finished  of  our  instruments,  and  without  that  the 
other  vehicles  would  be  of  little  use  to  us  at  this  time. 
For  while  this  splendidly  organized  instrument  enables  us 
to  meet  the  thousand  and  one  conditions  here,  our  higher 
vehicles  are  practically  unorganized.  The  vital  body  is 
formed  organ  for  organ  as  our  dense  physical  body,  but 
until  it  has  been  trained  by  esoteric  exercises  it  is  not  a 
fit  instrument  to  function  in  alone.  The  desire  body  has 
only  a  number  of  sense  centres  which  are  not  even  active 
in  the  great  majority  of  people,  and  as  for  the  mind,  it  is  an 
unformed  cloud  with  the  great  majority.  We  should  aim 
today  to  spiritualize  the  physical  instrument,  and  we  should 
realize  that  we  must  train  our  higher  vehicles  before  they 
can  be  of  use.  For  the  great  mass  of  people  that  will- 
take  a  long,  long  time.  Therefore,  it  is  best  to  do  the 
duty  that  is  close  to  our  hands,  then  we  hasten  the  day 
when  we  shall  be  able  to  use  the  higher  vehicles,  for  that 
day  depends  upon  ourselves, 


20  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  6. 

Does  the  spirit  enter  the  body  at  the  time  of  conception 
or  at  the  time  of  birth  ? 


Answer:  It  has  been  ascertained,  J?y  clairvoyant  Livesti- 
gation  that  at  the  time  of  death  the  spirit  takes  with  it  the 
forces  of  one  little  atom  located  in  the  left  ventricle  of  the 
heart,  which  is  called  the  seed  atom,  for  it  is  the  nucleus  or 
seed  around  which  all  the  material  in  the  body  gathers,  and 
every  atom  in  the  body  must  be  capable  of  vibrating  in 
unison  with  that  seed  atom.  Therefore,  that  atom  is 
deposited  in  the  semen  of  the  father  some  time  previous  to 
conception,  and  later  placed  in  the  womb  of  the  mother. 
But  conception  is  not  at  all  identical  with  the  time  of 
sexual  union  of  the  parents.  The  impregnated  spermatozoa 
is  sometimes  not  imbedded  in  the  ovum  until  fourteen  days 
after  the  union  of  the  parents.  It  is  this  impregnation  of 
the  ovum  that  may  be  called  the  time  of  conception,  for 
from  the  moment  when  the  impregnated  ovum  leaves  the 
Falopian  tube  the  period  of  gestation  commences.  During 
the  first  eighteen  to  twenty-one  days,  all  the  work  is  done 
by  the  mother,  but  at  that  time  the  reincarnating  Ego, 
clothed  in  a  bell-shaped  cloud  of  desire-and-mind-stufT, 
enters  the  womb  of  the  mother  and  the  bell-shaped  cloud 
closes  at  the  bottom  so  that  it  is  then  ovoid,  or  egg-shaped 
Then  the  spirit  is  definitely  enmeshed  in  the  flesh  and  can- 
not escape  any  more,  but  must  stay  with  the  mother  until 
liberated  by  birth.  In  the  present  stage  of  our  unfold- 
ment,  the  spirit  does  very  little  conscious  work  upon  its 
coming  vehicle,  but  it  is  present  all  the  time  and  helps 
unconsciously  in  the  task  of  providing  its  instrument.  This 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  21 

is  no  more  remarkable  than  that  we  are  able  to  digest  our 
food  and  work  our  respiratory  organs  without  being  con- 
scious of  the  process. 


QUESTION  No.  7. 
What  was  the  purpose  in  the  division  of  the  sexes? 


Answer:  The  division  of  the  sexes  was  brought  about  at 
a  very  early  stage  of  man's  evolution,  when  he  had  as 
yet  no  brain  or  larynx.  One-half  of  the  creative  force  was 
then  turned  upward  in  order  that  these  two  organs  might 
be  built.  The  brain  was  made  for  the  evolution  of  thought 
whereby  man  creates  in  the  Physical  World.  Houses,  cities, 
steamships,  railways,  everything  made  by  the. hand  is  crys- 
ta.llized  human  thought.  The  larynx  was  also  made  by  the 
creative  sex-force  in  order  that  man  might  express  his 
thoughts.  The  connection  between  those  organs  and  the 
force  expressed  through  the  lower  creative  organ  will  be 
evident  when  we  remember  that  the  boy  who  possesses  the 
positive  creative  force  changes  his  voice  at  the  time  of 
puberty,  when  he  is  first  able  to  procreate  his  kind;  also 
that  the  man  who  abuses  his  sex-force  becomes  an  idiot, 
while  the  profound  thinker  who  uses  nearly  all  his  creative 


22  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

force  in  thought  will  have  little  or  no   inclination  for 
amorous  practices. 

Prior  to  this  division  man  was,  like  some  plants  today, 
ft  complete  creative  unit  capable  of  perpetuating  his  kind 
without  the  help  of  another.  The  faculties  of  thought  and 
speech  have  been  bought  at  the  loss  of  this  creative  power; 
but  now  that  half  of  the  creative  force  which  is  expressed 
through  brain  and  larynx  may  be  used  to  create  things 
in  the  world — houses,  ships,  etc. 


QUESTION  No.  8. 

Is  the  soul  of  a  woman  masculine  and  the  soul  of  a  man 
feminine? 


Answer:  Speaking  generally,  we  might  say  "yes,"  the 
vital  body  which  is  eventually  transformed,  transmuted  and 
spiritualized  into  soul  is  of  the  opposite  sex.  It  is  formed 
organ  for  organ  exactly  like  the  dense  physical  body  with 
this  one  exception,  and  this  elucidates  mr.ny  facts  otherwise 
unexplainable.  The  faculties  inherent  in  the  vital  body 
are  growth,  propagation,  assimilation  and  memory.  The 
woman  having  the  positive  vital  body  is  matured  earliei 
than  the  male,  the  parts  which  remain  plant-like,  such  as, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  23 

for  instance,  the  hair,  grows  longer  and  more  luxuriant, 
and  naturally  a  positive  vital  body  will  generate  more  blood 
than  the  negative  vital  body  possessed  by  the  masculine, 
hence  we  have  in  woman  a  greater  blood  pressure,  which  it 
is  necessary  to  relieve  by  the  periodical  flow,  and  when  that 
ceases  at  the  climacteric  period  there  is  a  second  growth 
iri  woman,  particularly  well  expressed  in  the  saying  "fat 
and  forty." 

The  impulses  of  the  desire  body  drive  the  blood  through 
the  system  at  varying  rates  of  speed,  according  to  the 
strength  of  the  emotions.  Woman,  having  an  excess  of 
blood,  works  under  much  higher  pressure  than  man,  and 
while  this  pressure  is  relieved  by  the  periodical  flow,  there 
are  times  when  it  is  necessary  to  have  an  extra  outlet; 
then  the  tears  of  woman,  which  are  white  bleeding,  act  as 
a  safety  valve  to  remove  the  excessive  fluid.  Men,  although 
they  may  have  as  strong  emotions  as  women,  are  not  given 
to  tears  because  they  have  no  more  blood  than  they  can 
comfortably  use. 

Being  positively  polarized  in  the  Etheric  Region  of  the 
Physical  World,  the  sphere  of  woman  has  been  the  home 
and  the  church  where  she  is  surrounded  by  love  and  peace, 
=#hil-  man  fights  the  battle  of  the  strong  for  the  survival 
'of  the  fittest,  without  quarter  in  the  dense  Physical  World, 
'where  he  is  positive. 


24  ROSICPJJCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  9. 

Do   we   keep   the   same   temperament   through   all   our 
lives? 


Answer:  The  Ego  may  be  likened  unto  a  precious  stone, 
a  diamond  in  the  rough.  When  it  is  taken  out  of  the 
earth  the  stone  is  far  from  beautiful ;  a  rough  coating  hides 
the  splendor  within,  and  before  the  rough  diamond  becomes 
a  gem,  it  must  be  polished  upon  the  hard  grindstone.  Each 
application  to  the  stone  removes  a  part  of  the  rough  coat 
arid  grinds  a  facet  through  ^vhich  the  light  enters  and  is 
refracted  at  a  different  angle  from  the  light  thrown  back 
by  the  other  facets. 

So  it  is  with  the  Ego.  A  diamond  in  the  rough,  it  enters 
the  school  of  experience,  the  pilgrimage  through  matter, 
and  each  life  is  as  an  application  of  the  gem  to  the  stone. 
Each  life  in  the  school  of  experience  removes  part  of  the 
roughness  of  the  Ego  and  admits  the  light  of  intelligence 
at  a  new  , angle,  giv,ing  a  different  experience,  and  thus 
as  the  angles  of  light  vary  in  the  many  facets  of  the  dia- 
mond, so  the  temperament  of  the  Ego  differs  in  each  life. 
In  each  life  we  can  show  forth  only  a  small  part  of  our 
spiritual  natures,  we  can  realize  only  a  small  part  of  the 
splendor  of  our  divine  possibilities,  but  every  life  tends 
to  make  us  more  rounded  and  our  temperaments  become 
more  even.  In  fact,  it  is  the  work  upon  the  temperament 
that  is  the  principal  part  of  our  lesson,  for  self-mastery 
is  the  goal.  As  Goethe  says, 

"From  every  power  which  all  the  world  enchains, 
Man  liberates  himself  when  self-control  he  gains." 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  25 

QUESTION  No.  10. 

Is  the  desire  body  subject  to  sickness  and  does  it  need 
nutrition  and  replenishment?    . 


Answer:  In  a  certain  sense  it  is,  during  earth  life;  that 
is  to  say,  sickne?s  shows  itself  first  in  the  desire  body  and 
in  the  vital  body,  which  become  thinner  in  texture  and 
do  not  specialize  the  ^rital  fluid  in  the  same  proportion 
as  usual  during  health.  Then  the  dense  physical  body 
becomes  sick.  When  recovery  takes  place  the  higher 
vehicles  show  improvement  before  the  manifestation  of 
health  is  apparent  in  the  Physical  World. 

But  if  the  inquirer  means  to  ask  concerning  conditions 
after  death,  the  matter  is  different.  Although  a  person 
may  be  sick  here,  perhaps  bedridden  for  years  and  unable 
to  move- about,  when  death  has  taken  place,  and  he  feels 
himself  without  the  dense  body,  there  is  at  once  a  sense  of 
relief,  a  feeling  of  gladness  and  lightness  which  is  unusual 
to  him,  and  he  suddenly  wakes  up  to  the  fact  that  he  has  no 
pain  attd  is  able^to  move  about.  If  he  understands^  condi- 
tions, he  will  also  know  that  it  is  unnecessary  for  him  to 
take  nourishment,  for  the  desire  vehicle  needs  no  replen- 
ishment. Many  people,  however,  are  not  aware  of  the 
fact  and  therefore  we  find  in  the  lower  regions  of  the 
Desire  World  that  sometimes  they  will  go  through  all  the 
motions  of  ordinary  house-keeping.  Hence  the  stories  of 
some  spiritualistic  investigators,  who  have  found  these  con- 
ditions in  the  Invisible  World;  and  this  also  accounts  for  a 
great  deal  of  that  which  George  Du  Maurier  has  told  of  the 
life  of  Peter  Ibbettson  and  the  Countess  of  Towers,  in  his 
novel  bearing  the  hero's  name.  This  novel  is  recommended 


26  KOSICEU€IAN  PHILOSOPHY 

to  the  reader  as  giving  a  fine  illustration  of  the  operation  of 
the  subconscious  memory  where  the  hero  deals  with  his 
child-life,  and  of  actual  conditions  in  the  lower  regions  of 
the  Invisible  World,  where  his  experiences  with  the 
countess  are  concerned. 


- 


• 

- 

QUESTION  ,  .No.  11. 

•    • 

flow  is  it  that  one  atones  for  all  sin  in  Purgatory,  then 
at  rebirth  must  again  suffer  through  the  Law  of  Cause  and 
Effect  for  sins  of  a  former  life? 


i.  '  - 

Answer:  There  are  two  distinct  activities  in  Purgatory. 
First,  there  is  the  eradication  of  bad  habits.  For  instance, 
the  drunkard  craves  drink  just  as  much  as  he  does  before 
death,  but  now  he  has  no  stomach  and  alimentary  canal 
wherein  to  contain  the  liquor,  so  that,  although  he  may 
go  around  to  the  various  saloons,  although  he  may  even  get 
inside  the  whiskey  casks  and  steep  himself  in  the  liquor, 
he  obtains  no  satisfaction,  for  there  are  no  fumes  as  when 
chemical  combustion  takes  place  in  a  stomach.  Thus  he 
suffers  all  the  tortures  of  Tantalus — "Water,  water  every- 
where, and  not  a  drop  to  drink/' 

But;  as  desire  in  this  world  burns  out  when  we  realize 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  £7 

that  it  cannot  be  gratified,  so  in  time  the  drunkard  is  cured 
of  hia  desire  for  drink,  because  he  can  obtain  no  liquor,  and 
he  is.  born  innocent  of  evil  so  far  as  that- particular  vice 
is. concerned.  However,  he  must  overcome  that  vice  con- 
sciously, and  so  at  a  certain  time  temptation  will  come  in 
his  way.  When  he  has  grown  up  a  companion  may  ask 
him  to  "come  and  have  a  drink."  Then  it  depends  upon 
whether  he  yields  or  not.  If  he  does,  he  sins  anew  and 
must  be  purged  anew,  till  at  iast  the  cumulative  pains  of 
repeated  purgatorial  existence  will  cause  him  to  have  a 
disgust  for  drink.  Then  he  will  have  consciously  over- 
come temptation  and  there  will  be  no  more  suffering  from 
that  source. 

As  to  the  evil  that  we  have  done  to  others,  for  instance, 
where  we  have  dealt  cruelly  with  a  child  placed  under  our 
care,  where  we  have  beaten  and  starved  it  or  otherwise 
maltreated  it,  the  scenes  where  we  have  thus  done  wrong 
will  have  impressed  themselves  upon  the  atom  in  the  heart ; 
later  on,  the  etching  will  have  been  transferred  to  the  desire 
body  and  the  panorama  of  life,  which  unrolls  backward, 
will  again  bring  these  scenes  before  our  consciousness.  We 
shall  then  ourselves  feel  as  the  child  felt  who  was  our  vic- 
tim; we  shall  feel  the  stripes  that  we  inflicted  just  as  the 
child  felt  them;  we  shall  feel  the  mental  anguish  and 
mortification;  we  shall  suffer  pang  for  pang,  and  then, 
when  we  are  reborn,  we  shall  meet  our  victim  and  have 
the  opportunity  to  do  good  to  that  victim  instead  of  doing 
evil.  If  we  do  so,  well  and  good ;  if  our  old  enmity  asserts 
itself  as  before,  then  further  stripes  in  the  next  Purgatory 
will  at  last  cause  us  to  see  that  we  ought  to  be  merciful 
with  those  under  our  care.  So  we  do  not  suffer  anew  for 
sins  of  a  former  life;  we  are  born  innocent  through  the 
blessed  ministrations  of  Purgatory,  and  at  least  .every  evil 


28  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

act  we  commit  is  an  act  of  free  will.  But  temptations  are 
placed  before  us  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  the  purging 
has  been  sufficient  to  teach  us  the  needed  lessons,  and  it  is 
our  privilege  either  to  yield  or  to  stand  strong  and  firm 
for  the  good. 


-••  •• 


-non:  "t 


>•.'£*  "till 


fi?  iii  aiojffc  •-«;:'  y  v>fev-Hnr.. 

iij  oj 


When  the-  spirit  parses  out  of  the  body  at 
death,  the  parroramarof  its  past  life  passes  before  it  during 
the  first  three  -and  one-half  days  after  its  release  from 
the  body.  These  pictures  are  etched  into  the  desire  body 
and  form  the  basis  of  life  in  Purgatory  and  the  First 
Heaven,  which  are  located  in  "the  Desire  World.  ;i!ne  past 
life  is  reproduced  in  pictures  shifting  backward  so  that 
the  scenes  which  happened  just  previous  to  death  are  first 
gone  over;  then  follows  the  life  toward  childhood  and 
infancy.  In  Purgatory  only  the  scenes  where  the  soul  did 
wrong  are  reenacted,  and  the  soul  sees  itself  as  being  the 
one  whom  it  wronged  and  suffers  as  those  suffered  whom 
it  wronged  in  earth  life.  The  record  of  these  sufferings 
is  indelibly  engraven  upon  the  seed  atom,  which  is  the  only 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  29 

part  of  the  dense  body  the  soul  takes  with  it  and  keeps 
permanently  from  life  to  life.  This  is,  in  a  way,  the 
"book"  of  the  "Recording  Angel,"  and  as  the  suffering 
caused  by  a  certain  act  has  been  engraven  upon  this  seed 
atom  in  Purgatory,  it  is  evident  that  when  in  a  new  life 
similar  circumstances  arise  and  the  old  temptations  come 
before  us,  the  suffering  which" we  experienced  because  of 
that  wrong  deed  is  present  iri'the  seed  atom  to  warn  us  that 
such  and  such  a  course  of  aetibh  was  wrong.  That  is  f*e 
"voice  of  conscience/'  a#d  i-f^he  suffering  entailed  in  Pur- 
gatory was  sufficiently  interise,  we  shall  have  the  power  to 
resist  whatever  temptation  comes  before  us.  If.  on  the 
other  hand,  from  certain  different  causes,  the  suffering  was 
not  keen  enough,  we  may  yield  permanently  or  temporarily 
in  another  life  to  the  same^ternptations  that  cost  suffer- 
ing in  previous  lives;  we::m¥y  VieldeVeh  against  the  small 
murmurings  of  conscience.  But  when^lf'aWreleased  from 
our  bodies  and  p'apg  into  Purgatory ;'fh& "next  time,  we  shall 
there  'have  the  adiMl  suffering  'ca^ed ^by  our  yielding  fe 
temptation,  and'the  cumulative  effects* of  this  suffering  will 
at  last  be  sufficient  to  restrain  us  from  the  course  which 
caused  us  pain. 

When  a  temptation  has  come  before  us  in  an  earth  life 
and  has  been  put  aside  consciously,  we  shall  have  learned 
the  lesson  and  conscience  has  accomplished  its  purpose. 

Replying  definitely  to  the  question,  we  may  therefore  say 
that  conscience  is  the  spirit's  memory  of  past  sufferings 
occasioned  by  the  mistakes  in  previous  lives. 


30  RQSICRUeiAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  13. 

. 
What  is  genius? 

. 
• 

Answer:  From  the  ordinary  standpoint,  genius  seems 
to  hi;an  accident.  The  theory  of  heredity  will  not  account 
lor  it,  for  sometimes  the  most  commonplace  people  bring 
a  child  into  the  world  which  is  a  genius,  and  the  most 
highly  educated  and  intellectual  people  have  idiots  for  their 
children.  At  other  times  we  find  both  idiots  and  geniuses 
in. the  same  family.  In  fact,  insanity  and  genius  may  be 
said  to  be  the  two  extremes  where  the  mental  qualities  of 
humanity  meet. 

....  If  we  try  to  account  for  genius  by  heredity,  we  cannot 
help  asking  ourselves  why  there  is  not  a  long  line  of 
mechanical  ancestors  before  Thomas  Edison,  who  might 
then  be  regarded  as  the  flower  of  a  family.  But  we  find 
that  in  all  cases  the  appearance  of  genius  is  not  possible  of 
deduction  to  any  law  when  viewed  from  the  mere  material 
standpoint. 

When  we  bring  the  law  of  causation  and  its  companion 
law,  the  law  of  rebirth,  to  bear  upon  the  problem,  the  mat- 
ter is  very  different.  This  theory  asserts  that  earth  life  is 
a  school  of  experience;  that  at  each  new  birth  we  are  born 
with  the  accumulated  experiences  of  all  our  past  lives  as 
our  stock  in  trade,  our  capital;  that  some  of  us  have 
attended  this  school  of  experience  during  many  lives,  and 
have  gathered  much  store.  Perhaps  we  have  developed  one 
particular  faculty  more  than  others,  so  that  we  have  become 
extremely  expert  in  one  special  line  of  endeavor.  That  is 
genius. 

In  order  to  express  some  of  our  faculties,  for  instance, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  31 

music,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  have  certain  physical 
characteristics  such  as  long  and  slender  fingers,  a  delicate- 
nervous  system,  and,  particularly,  the  ear  should  be  spe- 
cially developed  in  order  that  we  may  express  ourselves  as 
musicians.  Material  required  for  that  expression  cannot  be 
found  anywhere,  but  the  law  of  association  would  naturally 
draw  a  musician  to  other  musicians,  and  there  he  will  find 
ready  to  his  hand  the  materials  wherewith  to  build  for  him- 
self a  body  such  as  is  required  for  the  expression  of  his  tal- 
ent. Therefore,  it  sometimes  seems  as  if  musicians -are 
born  in  families ;  for  instance,  twenty-nine  musicians  were 
born  in  the  Bach  family  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  years. 


-'  .  '  •         - 

QUESTION  No.  14. 

Is  a  soul  that  is  born  as  a  woman  always  a  woman  in 
its  after  lives,  and  can  it  never  become  a  man?  And  what 
is  the  time  between  incarnations? 


Answer:  No,  the  spirit  is  double-sexed  and  usually 
expresses  itself  in  its  successive  lives  alternately  as  man 
and  woman.  There  are,  however,  sometimes  cases  where, 
according  to  the  Law  of  Consequences,  it  is  preferable  that 


32  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

a  spirit  should  appear  for  several  successive  lives  in  a 
certain  sex. 

The  law  is  this: 

As  the  sun  moves  backward  among  the  twelve  constella- 
tions by  the  movement  which  we  call  the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes,  the  climate  of  the  earth,  the  flora  and  fauna  are 
slowly  changed,  thus  making  a  different  environment  for 
the  human  race  in  each  successive  age.  It  takes  the  sun 
about  two  thousand  years  to  go  through  one  of  the  signs 
by  precession,  and  in  that  time  the  spirit  is  usually  born 
twice,  once  as  a  man  and  once  as  a  woman.  The  changes 
which  take  place  in  the  thousand  years  between  incarna- 
tions are  not  so  great  but  that  the  spirit  will  be  able  to 
extract  the  experiences  of  that  environment  from  the  stand- 
point of  both  man  and  woman. 

However,  there  may  sometimes  be  cases  where  the  time 
is  also  changed.  Xone  of  these  .laws  are  inflexible  as  the 
laws  of  the  Medes  and  the  Persians,  but  are  administered 
by  Great  Intelligences  for  the  benefit  of  mankind,  so  that 
conditions  may  be  changed  in  order  to  fit  the  exigencies  of 
individual  cases.  For  instance,  in  the  case  of  a  musician. 
He  cannot  find  the  material  wherewith  to  build  his  body 
everywhere.  He  needs  particular  help  to  build  the  three 
semi-circular  canals  of  his  ear  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
will  point  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  three  directions  of 
space;  he  also  needs  special  help  to  build  the  delicate 
fibres  of  Corti,  for  his  ability  to  distinguish  shades  of 
tone  depends  upon  these  features. 

In  such  a  case,  when  a  family  of  musicians  with  whom 
he  has  connection  is  in  a  position  to  give  birth  to  a  child, 
lie  may  be  brought  there,  though  his  stay  in  the  Heaven 
World  should  not  ordinarily  terminate  for  another  hun- 
dred years,  for  perhaps  another  opportunity  might  not  offer 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  33 

for  two  or  three  hundred  years  after  he  should  be  born  if 
the  law  were  adhered  to.  Then,  of  course,  such  a  man 
is  ahead  of  his  time,  and  not  appreciated  by  the  genera- 
tion among  which  he  lives.  He  is  misunderstood,  but 
even  that  is  better  than  if  he  had  been  born  later  than  he 
should  have  been,  for  then  he  would  have  been  behind  the 
times. 

Thus  it  is  that  we  so  often  see  geniuses  unappreciated  by 
their  contemporaries,  though  highly  valued  by  succeeding 
generations  who  can  understand  their  viewpoint. 


QUESTION  No.  15. 

When  a  man  pays  his  debts,  cares  for  his  family  and  lives 
a  moral  life  here,  will  he  not  be  all  right  hereafter? 


Answer:  No,  there  is  something  more  required,  and 
there  are  many  people  of  just  that  belief  who  have  a  rather 
unenviable  time  in  the  Desire  World  after  death.  They 
are,  of  course,  to  be  looked  up  to  from  the  standpoint  of 
this  life  only,  but  at  the  present  time  we  are  required  to 
at  least  cultivate  some  altruistic  tendencies  in  order  to 
progress  beyond  our  present  evolutionary  status. 

We  find  the  people  who  have  neglected  the  higher  duties 
in  the  fourth  region  of  the  Desire  World  after  death. 


34  ROSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

There  is  the  business  man  who  paid  a  hundred  cents  on 
the  dollar,  who  dealt  honestly  by  everyone;  who  worked 
for  the  material  improvement  of  his  city  and  country  as  a 
good  citizen,  paid  his  employes  fair  wages,  treated  his  wife 
and  family  with  consideration,  gave  them  all  possible 
advantages,  etc.  He  may  even  through  them  have  built 
a  church,  or  at  least  given  very  liberally  to  it,  or  he  may 
have  built  libraries  or  founded  institutes,  etc.  But  he  did 
not  give  himself.  He  only  took  interest  in  the  church  for 
the  sake  of  his  family  or  for  the  sake  of  respectability;  he 
had  no  heart  in  it,  all  his  heart  was  in  his  business,  in 
making  money  or  attaining  a  worldly  position. 

When  he  enters  the  Desire  World  after  death  he  is  too 
good  to  go  to  Purgatory  and  not  good  enough  to  go  to 
heaven.  He  has  dealt  justly  with  everyone  and  wronged 
nobody.  Therefore,  he  has  nothing  to  expiate.  But  neither 
has  he  done  any  good  that  could  give  him  a  life  in  the 
First  Heaven  where  the  good  of  his  past  life  is  assimilated. 
Therefore,  he  is  in  the  fourth  region — between  Heaven 
and  Hell,  as  it  were.  The  fourth  region  is  the  centre  of 
the  Desire  World  and  the  feeling  there  is  most  intense; 
the  man  still  feels  a  keen  desire  for  business,  but  there  he 
can  neither  buy  nor  sell,  and  so  his  life  is  a  most  dreadful 
monotony. 

All  that  he  gave  to  the  churches,  institutes,  etc.,  counts 
as  nothing  because  of  his  lack  of  heart.  Only  when  we 
give  for  love  will  the  gift  avail  to  ~bring  happiness  here- 
after. It  is  not  the  amount  that  we  give,  but  the  spirit 
that  accompanies  the  gift,  which  matters;  therefore,  it  is 
within  the  power  of  everyone  to  give  and  thus  benefit  him- 
self and  others.  Indiscriminate  money  giving,  however, 
often  causes  people  to  become  thriftless  and  indigent,  but 
by  giving  heartfelt  sympathy;  by  helping  people  to  believe 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  35 

in  themselves  and  start  in  life  with  fresh  ardor  when  they 
have  fallen  by  the  wayside;  by  giving  ourselves  in  services 
rendered  humanity,  we  lay  up  treasure  in  heaven  and  give 
more  than  gold.  Christ  said:  "The  poor  are  with  us 
always."  We  may  not  be  able  to  bring  them  from  poverty 
to  riches  and  that  may  not  be  best  for  them,  but  we  can 
encourage  them  to  learn  the  lesson  that  is  to  be  learned  in 
poverty;  we  can  help  them  to  a  better  view  of  life,  and 
unless  the  man  who  is  in  the  position  designated  by  the 
inquirer  does  that  also,  he  will  not  be  "all  right"  when 
he  passes  out;  he  will  suffer  that  dreadful  monotony  in 
order  to  teach  him  that  he  must  fill  his  life  with  something 
of  real  value,  and  thus  in  a  succeeding  life  his  conscience 
will  spur  him  on  to  do  something  better  than  to  grind  out 
dollars,  though  he  will  not  neglect  his  material  duties,  for 
that  is  as  bad  as  to  spurn  spiritual  endeavor. 


QUESTION  No.  16. 

It  is  sometimes  contended  that  we  have  a  right  to  think 
what  we  will  and  are  not  responsible  for  our  thoughts.  Is 
that  so  from  an  occult  point  of  view? 

Answer:  No,  indeed;  it  is  very  much  the  reverse,  and 
we  do  not  need  to  go  as  far  as  what  is  usually  called 
occultism;  we  find  that  idea  expressed  by  Christ  in  the 


36  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

sermon  on  the  mount,  where  he  tells  us  that  "The  man  who 
has  looked  upon  a  woman  with  desire  has,  in  fact,  already 
committed  adultery1'  and  when  we  realize  that  as  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he,  we  shall  have  a  much  clearer 
conception  of  life  if  we  only  take  into  consideration  the 
acts  of  men,  for  every  act  is  the  outcome  of  a  previous 
thought  lut  these  thoughts  are  not  always  our  own. 

When  we  strike  a  tuning  fork,  another  tuning  fork  of 
the  same  pitch  being  near,  not  only  the  one  which  is  struck 
will  ring,  but  the  other  will  also  commence  to  sing  in 
sympathy.  Likewise,  when  we  think  a  thought  and  another 
person  in  our  environment  has  been  thinking  along  the 
same  line,  our  thoughts  coalesce  with  his  and  strengthen 
him  for  good  or  evil  according  to  the  nature  of  the  thought. 
It  is  no  mere  fancy  when  in  the  play  called  "The  Witch- 
ing Hour/'  the  hero  aims  to  help  a  scoundrel  escape  from 
the  State  of  Kentucky,  where  the  latter  is  about  to  be 
arrested  for  murder  of  the  Governor.  The  hero,  a  man 
of  considerable  thought  power  feels  that  he  may  have 
prompted  the  criminal.  He  tells  his  sister  that  previous  to 
the  time  of  the  murder  he  had  thought  that  the  murder 
could  be  committed  just  in  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
actually  done.  He  is  under  the  impression  that  his  thought 
may  have  been  caught  by  the  brain  of  the  murderer  and 
have  shown  him  the  way  to  commit  the  murder. 

When  we  go  into  a  jury  box  and  we  see  before  ourselves 
the  criminal,  we  behold  only  his  act ;  we  have  no  cognizance 
of  the  thought  which  prompted  him.  If  we  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  thinking  evil,  malicious  thoughts  against 
one  person  or  another,  these  thoughts  may  have  been 
attractive  to  that  criminal,  and  on  the  principle  that  when 
we  have  before  ourselves  a  saturated  solution  of  salt  it 
will  only  take  a  single  crystal  to  make  that  salt  solution 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  37 

solidify,  .cc  also  if  a  man  lias  saturated  his  brains  with 
thoughts  of  murder,  the  thought  that  we  sent  out  may  be 
the  last  straw  breaking  the  back  of  the  camel,  destroying 
the  last  barrier  which  would  have  held  him  from  com- 
mitting the  act.  . 

Therefore,  our  thoughts  are  of  vastly  more  impoitance 
than  our  acts,  for  if  we  will  only  think  right,  we  shall 
always  act  right.  No  man  can  think  love  to  his  fellow- 
men  ;  can  scheme  in  his  mind  how  to  aid  and  help  them, 
spiritually,  mentally  or  physically,  without  also  acting  out 
these  thoughts  at  some  time  in  his  life,  and  if  we  will 
only  cultivate  such  thoughts,  we  shall  soon  find  sunshine 
spreading  around  us;  we  shall  find  that  people  will  meet 
us  in  that  same  spirit  that  we  send  out,  and  if  we  could 
realize  that  the  desire  body  (which  surrounds  each  of 
us  and  extends  about  sixteen  to  eighteen  inches  beyond  the 
periphery  of  the  physical  body)  contains  all  these  feelings 
and  emotions,  then  we  would  meet  people  differently,  for 
we  would  understand  that  everything  we  see  is  viewed 
through  the  atmosphere  which  we  have  created  around 
ourselves  which  colors  all  we  behold  in  others. 

If,  then,  we  see  meanness  and  smallness  in  the  people 
whom  we  meet,  it  would  be  well  to  look  within  to  ascertain 
if  it  is  not  the  atmosphere  we  are  looking  through  which 
colors  them  thus.  Let  us  see  if  we  have  not  within  our- 
selves those  undesirable  qualities,  and  then  begin  to  rem- 
edy the  defect  within  ourselves.  The  man  who  is  mean 
•and  small  himself  radiates  those  qualities,  and  whoever 
he  meets  will  appear  mean  to  him  for  lie  ivill  call  out  from 
others  the  very  qualities  which  he  manifests,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  vibration  of  a  tuning  fork  of  a  certain  pitch, 
when  struck,  will  cause  another  of  identical  pitch  to  vibrate. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  cultivate  a  serene  attitude,  an 


38  KOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

attitude  that  is  free  from  covetousness  and  is  frankly 
honest  and  helpful,  we  shall  call  out  the  best  in  other 
people.  Therefore  let  us  realize  that  it  is  not  until  we 
have  cultivated  the  better  qualities  in  ourselves  that  we  can 
expect  to  find  them  in  others.  We  are  thus  in  very  truth 
responsible  for  our  thoughts,  we  are  indeed  the  keepers  of 
our  brothers,  for  as  we  think  when  we  meet  them,  so  do 
we  appear  to  them,  and  they  reflect  our  attitude.  Apply- 
ing the  foregoing  principle,  if  we  want  to  obtain  help  to 
cultivate  those  better  qualities,  let  us  seek  the  company 
of  people  who  are  already  good,  for  their  attitude  of  mind 
will  be  of  immense  help  to  us  to  call  forth  in  us  the  finer 
qualities. 


QUESTION  No.  17. 

//  a  person  is  constantly  bothered  ly  evil  thoughts  which 
keep  coming  into  his  mind,  although  he  is  constantly  fight- 
ing them,  is  there  any  way  in  which  he  can  cleanse  his 
mind  so  that  he  will  think  only  pure  and  good  thoughts? 


Answer:  Yes,  there  is,  and  a  very  easy  way  at  that. 
The  inquirer  has  himself  suggested  the  chief  difficulty  in 
his  question,  when  he  says  that  he  is  constantly  fighting 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  39 

these  thoughts.    If  we  take  an  illustration  we  shall  see  the 
point. 

Supposing  we  have  a  particular  dislike  for  a  certain 
person  whom  we  meet  every  day  upon  the  street,  perhaps 
a  number  of  times.  If  we  stop  each  time  we  meet  that  per- 
son and  herate  him  for  walking  upon  the  street,  for  not 
keeping  out  of  our  sight,  we  are  each  time  adding  fuel  to 
the  fire  of  our  enmity,  we  are  stirring  him  up,  and  for  pure 
spite  he  may  seek  to  waylay  us  so  much  the  more.  Both 
like  and  dislike  have  a  tendency  to  attract  a  thought  or 
an  idea  to  us,  and  the  added  thought  force  which  we  send 
out  to  fight  evil  thoughts  will  keep  them  alive  and  bring 
them  to  our  mind  the  oftener,  in  the  same  way  that  quar- 
reling will  cause  the  person  we  dislike  to  waylay  us  for 
spite.  But  if,  instead  of  fighting  him,  we  adopt  the  tac- 
tics of  indifference.  If  we  turn  our  heads  the  other  way 
when  we  meet  him  upon  the  street,  he  will  soon  grow  tired 
of  following  us ;  and,  on  the  same  principle,  when  thoughts 
of  evil  come  into  our  minds.  If  we  will  but  turn  away 
with  indifference  and  apply  our  minds  to  something  that 
is  good  and  ideal,  we  shall  find  in  a  short  time  that  we  are 
rid  of  their  companionship  and  have  only  the  good  thoughts 
we  desire  to  entertain. 


40  KOS1CRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  18. 

//  woman  is  an  emanation  from  man,  as  per  the  rib  story, 
will  she  in  the  final  return  to  unity  be  reabsorbed,  losing 
her  individuality  in  the  masculine  divinity? 


Answer:  The  "rib  story"  is  one  of  those  instances  of 
gross  ignorance  upon  the  part  of  the  Bible  translators — 
who  possessed  no  occult  knowledge — in  dealing  with  the 
language  of  the  Hebrews,  which  in  writing  was  not  divided 
into  words  and  had  no  vowel  points.  By  inserting  vowels 
at  different  points  and  dividing  words  differently,  various 
meanings  to  the  same  text  may  be  obtained  in  many  places. 
•This  is  one  case  where  a  word  pointed  in  one  way  reads 
"tsad"  and  in  another  way  "tsela."  The  Bible  translators 
read  the  story  that  the  God  had  taken  something  from 
Adam's  side  ("tsela"),  and  they  were  puzzled  as  to  what 
it  was  and  so,  perhaps,  they  thought  it  would  have  done 
him  the  least  harm  to  take  a  rib  ("tsad"),  hence  the  fool- 
ish story. 

The  fact  was  that  man  had  first  been  like  the  Gods, 
"made  in  their  image,"  male  and  female,  a  hermaphrodite, 
and  later  one  side  was  taken  away  so  that  he  became  divided 
into  two  sexes.  It  may  be  further  said  that  the  first  organ 
which  was  developed  as  it  is  now  was  the  female  organ, 
the  feminine  side  having  always  existed  in  everything 
before  the  masculine,  which  came  later,  and,  according  to 
the  law  in  evolution,  that  "the  first  shall  be  the  last,"  the 
feminine  will  remain  a  distinct  sex  longer  than  the  mascu- 
line, and,  therefore,  the  inquirer  is  altogether  wrong  in 
the  supposition.  It  is  the  masculine  that  will  be  absorbed 
in  the  feminine.  Even  now  it  is  seen  that  the  masculine 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  41 

organ  is  gradually  contracting  at  its  base  and  will  finally 
cease  to  be. 

As  for  losing  her  individuality,  such  a  thing  is  impos- 
sible; it  is  just  the  purpose  of  evolution  that  we  should 
become  individuals,  self-conscious  and  separate  during  evo- 
lution, self-conscious  and  united  during  the  interludes 
between  manifestation. 


QUESTION  No.  19. 

Why  has  woman  been  cursed  by  inequality,  assumed  in- 
feriority and  injustice  since  the  beginning  of  human  ex- 
istence upon  this  plane? 


Answer:  In  the  first  place,  we  must  remember  that  the 
spirit  is  neither  male  nor  female,  but  manifests  in  that  way 
alternately,  as  a  rule.  We  have  all  been  men  and  we 
have  all  been  women.  Therefore  there  can  be  no  question 
of  inequality  if  we  look  at  life  from  the  larger  point  of 
view.  Certain  lessons  must  be  learned  by  the  spirit  in  each 
age  which  can  only  be  learned  from  the  standpoint  of 
a  woman,  and  there  are  other  lessons  only  to  be  learned 
by  incarnation  in  a  male  body.  Therefore,  of  a  necessity, 
there  must  be  the  change  in  sex.  It  sometimes  happens, 


42  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  course,  that  for  certain  reasons  a  person  must  appear 
as  a  male  for  several  incarnations  and  then,  of  course, 
when  he  takes  upon  himself  the  female  garb,  it  may  jar 
considerably.  In  that  case  we  have  a  very  masculine 
woman,  perhaps  a  suffragette  of  a  militant  nature.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  spirit  may  sometimes  have  been  embodied 
for  several  incarnations  in  a  female  garb  and  then  may 
appear  as  a  man  of  a  very  effeminate  nature,  a  regulai 
"sissy."  But  even  upon  the  hypothesis  of  alternating  in- 
carnations, many  of  us  probably  were  incarnated  in 
Rome  in  the  opposite  sex,  and  taking  the  law  of  causa- 
tion into  consideration,  the  treatment  of  women  by  the 
men  of  that  time  was  not  such  as  to  cause  these  Eoman 
women  when  incarnated  now  as  men  to  give  any  great 
concessions  to  their  former  masters. 


QUESTION  No.  20. 

Why  was  the  suffering  of  Marguerite  so  extreme  and  out 
of  proportion  to  that  of  Faust,  even  to  imprisonment  and 
the  death  penalty,  while  his  life,  liberty  and  pursuit  of 
happiness  was  unmolested? 


Answer:  This  question  has  reference  to  one  of  the 
myths  which  have  come  down  through  the  ages,  and  con- 
trary to  the  popularly  accepted  opinion  a  myth  is  not  a 
story  made  out  of  whole  cloth,  but  is  veiled  truth,  reveal- 
ing in  symbol  great  spiritual  principles.  These  myths  were 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  43 

given  to  infant  humanity  for  the  same  reason  that  we 
give  our  children  ethical  teachings  in  nursery  stories  and 
picture  books,  which  impress  themselves  upon  the  infant 
mind  in  a  way  intellectual  teaching  would  be  incapable  of 
doing. 

Goethe,  who  was  an  initiate,  has  treated  this  Faust 
myth  in  a  way  that  is  wonderfully  illuminative,  and  the 
key  to  the  problem  is  found  in  the  prologue,  which  is 
laid  in  Heaven,  much  in  the  same  way  as  we  find  in  tho 
opening  of  the  Book  of  Job.  The  Sons  of  God  appear 
before  the  Throne  and  the  Devil  among  them,  for  he  is 
also  one  of  the  Sons  of  God.  He  is  given  permission  to 
try  to  seduce  Faust  in  order  that  the  spiritual  activities 
may  be  called  forth  and  virtue  developed.  It  is  one  of 
our  great  mistakes  to  regard  innocence  and  virtue  as  syn- 
onymous; every  one  among  us  is  born  innocent,  he  comes 
here  without  any  evil,  that  has  all  been  purged  away,  but 
he  has  certain  tendencies  which  may  develop  into  vice 
and,  therefore,  he  must  be  tried  in  every  life  to  see  whether 
he  will  yield  to  temptation  and  embrace  vice,  or  whether 
he  will  stand  firm  and  develop  virtue.  Faust  is  tempted, 
he  falls,  but  afterwards  he  sincerely  repents  and  trans- 
mutes the  evil  forces  to  good,  so  that  at  last  he  is  saved. 
Repentance  and  reform  before  death  has  wrought  his  sal- 
vation, the  impure  passion  he  felt  for  Marguerite  gave 
place  to  his  pure  love  for  Helen.  Marguerite  also,  yields 
to  the  temptation,  she  repents  and  is  saved  by  means  of 
the  forgiveness  of  sins.  Thus  in  the  case  of  one  it  is  salva- 
tion ly  acts.  By  his  energy,  which  dominates  the  evil 
forces,  he  builds  a  new  land,  a  land  where  a  free  people 
may  live  under  better  conditions;  he  is  seeking  to  lift 
humanity  to  a  higher  plane,  and  by  that  act,  by  his  un- 
selfish work  for  others,  he  is  redeemed  from  the  powers  of 


44  ROSICRUCiAN  PHILOSOPHY 

evil.  In  Marguerite's  case,  salvation  results  from  prayer 
and  repentance.  Thus  we  have  in  that  drama,  as  repre- 
sented by  Goethe,  a  perfect  symbol  of  the  Western  teaching 
that  there  is  both  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  the  expia- 
tion of  a  wrong  act  by  a  corresponding  right  act.  Death 
is  something  that  comes  to  all  and  the  suffering  which 
was  incident  to  the  wrong  act  in  each  case  is  surely  none 
the  less  in  the  case  of  Faust,  where  it  was  prolonged 
over  a  long  period  of  years,  than  in  the  case  of  Marguerite, 
where  the  life  is  ended  in  a  much  shorter  time.  The  only 
difference  is  that  Faust  has  overcome  consciously  and  will 
in  future  life  be  immune  to  temptation,  while  the  case 
of  Marguerite  is  problematical.  In  a  future  earth  life  she 
will  yet  have  to  meet  temptation  in  order  that  it  may  be 
made  manifest  whether  or  not  she  has  developed  the 
strength  of  character  requisite  to  withstand  the  wrong 
and  adhere  to  the  right. 


QUESTION  No.  21. 

Is  there  any  place,  either  in  the  Old  or  New  Testament, 
wherein  men  were  told  to  marry  and  then  live  as  brother 
and  sister  at  any  time  or  under  any  condition?  And  if  not 
in  the  Bible,  why  do  you  teach  it? 


Answer:     The  Original  Semites  were  the  fifth  of  the 
Atlantean  races.    They  came  out  of  the  drowning  Atlantis 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  45 

as  told  variously  in  the  stories  of  Xoah  and  Moses.  They 
were  to  go  into  a  Promised  Land,  not  little  insignificant 
Palestine,  but  the  whole  earth  as  it  is  now  constituted.  It 
was  promised  because  the  earth  was  undergoing  the  changes 
usual  when  a  new  race  is  to  take  possession.  Floods  had 
destroyed  the  Atlantean  civilization  and  in  the  wilderness 
of  Gobi,  in  Central  Asia,  wandered  the  nucleus  for  the 
present  Aryan  races. 

At  the  time  when  such  a  nucleus  was  to  become  a  world 
peopling  race,  naturally,  the  begetting  of  children  was  a 
prime  consideration.  Therefore,  it  was  looked  upon  as  the 
duty  of  everyone  to  beget  numerous  children  and  be  ex- 
ceedingly fruitful.  But  we  are  not  living  in  those  times 
now;  the  world  is  well  peopled  and  the  re-incarnating  Egos 
are  taken  care  of  without  special  endeavors  at  generation. 
We  have  never  advocated  general  celibacy,  or  that  people 
should  marry  and  then  live  at  all  times  as  brother  and 
sister ;  but  we  have  taught  that  married  people,  according 
to  their  circumstances,  should  help  to  perpetuate  the  race. 
That  is  to  say,  if  both  husband  and  wife  are  physically, 
morally  and  mentally  able;  when  they  are  possessed  of 
a  home,  wherein  an  incarnating  Ego  may  obtain  the 
chance  of  embodiment  and  experience,  they  should  offer 
themselves  as  a  living  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  human- 
ity and  give  of  the  substance  of  their  bodies  to  furnish 
an  Ego  with  a  vehicle,  inviting  it  into  their  home  as  they 
would  invite  a  dear  guest,  thankful  that  they  may  be 
able  to  do  for  it  what  others  have  done  for  them.  But 
when  the  act  of  impregnation  has  been  accomplished,  they 
should  refrain  from  further  intercourse,  until  again  they 
feel  sufficiently  fitted  to  generate  the  body  for  another 
child.  Such  is  the  teaching  of  the  Rosicrucians  concern- 
ing the  ideal  relation  between  husband  and  wife.  They 


46  KOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

hold  that  ^he  creative  function  should  not  be  used  for 
sensual  purposes,  but  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  race  for 
which  it  has  been,  naturally,  designed.  This  is  an  ideal 
condition  and  may  be  beyond  most  people  at  the  present 
time,  like  the  injunction  to  love  our  enemies ;  but  if  we  do 
not  have  high  ideals  we  shall  make  no  progress. 


QUESTION  Xo.  22. 

Is  there  a  soul-mate  belonging  to  every  soul  through  all 
eternity?  If  so.  would  it  not  be  better  to  remain  unmar- 
ried a  thousand  years  than  to  marry  the  wrong  mate  ? 


Answer:  As  the  light  is  refracted  into  the  seven  colors 
of  the  spectrum  when  passing  through  our  atmosphere, 
so  also  the  spirits  which  are  differentiated  within  God  are 
refracted  into  seven  great  rays.  Each  class  is  under  the 
direct  guidance  and  domination  of  one  of  the  Seven 
Spirits  before  the  Throne,  which  are  the  planetary  genii, 
the  Star  Angels.  All  the  Virgin  spirits  in  their  successive 
incarnations  are  continually  intermingling  in  order  that 
they  may  gain  the  most  varied  experiences;  nevertheless, 
those  who  have  emanated  from  the  same  Star  Angel  are 
always  sister  or  twin  souls,  and  when  they  seek  the  higher 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  47 

life,  they  must  enter  the  path  of  initiation  through  a 
lodge  composed  of  members  of  the  same  ray  from  which 
they  originally  came,  thence  to  return  to  their  primal 
source.  Therefore,  all  occult  schools  are  divisible  into 
seven,  one  for  each  class  of  spirits.  That  was  the  reason 
Jesus  said  to  his  disciples  "Your  father  and  mine" — None 
could  have  come  into  as  close  touch  with  him  as  these 
disciples  were,  except  those  belonging  to  the  same  ray. 

Like  all  other  mysteries,  this  beautiful  doctrine  has  been 
degraded  to  a  physical  or  material  idea  such  as  embodied 
in  the  popular  conception  of  twin  souls  or  affinities;  that 
one  is  male  and  the  other  female,  and  very  often  they 
are  somebody  else's  wife  or  husband.  In  such  cases  the 
doctrine  of  twin  souls  is  often  made  an  excuse  for  elope- 
ment and  adultery.  This  is  an  abominable  perversion. 
Each  spirit  is  complete  in  itself,  it  takes  upon  itself  a 
male  or  a  female  body  at  different  times  in  order  to  learn 
the  lessons  of  life,  and  it  is  only  during  the  present  stage 
of  its  development  that  there  is  such  a  feature  as  sex  at 
all.  The  Ego  was  before  sex,  and  will  persist  after  that 
phase  of  its  manifestation  has  passed  away. 


48  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  23. 

Is  it  wrong  for  first,  second  or  third  cousin-s  to  marry, 
and  if  so,  why  ? 


Answer:  The  purpose  of  marriage  is  the  perpetuation 
of  the  race,  and  according  to  the  physical  nature  of  the 
parents,  plus  their  environment,  will  the  child  be.  We 
find,  for  instance,  that  the  emigrants  who  come  to  our 
shores  are  different  from  the  children  they  beget,  and 
that  the  children  that  they  beget  here  in  America  are  dif- 
ferent from  the  children  begotten  in  Europe.  For  in- 
stance, the  longheaded  Sicilians  beget  children  who  have 
a  more  rounded  head,  and  the  round-headed  Jews  beget 
children  who  have  a  more  oval  shaped  head,  thus  showing 
in  all  races  a  tendency  to  amalgamate  and  bring  into  birth 
a  new  American  race. 

These  changes  are  not  at  all  brought  about  by  accident. 
The  great  leaders  of  humanity  always  aim  to  bring  about 
certain  conditions  in  order  to  produce  certain  types.  For 
only  in  that  way  can  the  faculties  be  evolved  that  are 
necessary  to  the  progress  of  the  spirit  and  there  was  a 
time  when  it  was  necessary  to  the  evolution  of  the  Ego 
that  they  should  marry  in  the  family.  At  that  time 
humanity  was  not  so  evolved  and  individualized  as  they 
are  now.  They  were  ruled  by  a  family  spirit  which  en- 
tered into  the  blood  by  means  of  the  air  they  inspired  to 
help  the  Ego  control  its  instrument.  Then  humanity  had 
what  is  known  as  second  sight,  and  that  second  sight  is  yet 
found  among  people  who  have  persisted  largely  in  mar- 
rying inside  the  family,  such,  for  instance,  as  the  Scotch 
Highlanders  and  the  Gypsies. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  49 

But  it  was  necessary  that  men  should  forget  the  Spirit- 
ual World  for  a  time  and  remember  no  life  but  the  pres- 
ent. In  order  to  bring  this  change  in  consciousness 
about,  the  great  leaders  took  certain  steps,  one  of  them 
being  the  prohibition  of  marriages  in  the  family.  When 
we  read  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Genesis  that  Adam  lived 
for  900  years  and  all  the  patriarchs  lived  for  centuries, 
it  does  not  really  mean  that  the  persons  named  lived 
themselves  during  that  length  of  time,  but  the  blood  which 
coursed  in  their  veins  was  transmitted  directly  to  their 
descendants  and  this  blood  contained  the  pictures  of  the 
family  as  it  now  contains  the  pictures  of  our  individual 
lives,  for  the  blood  is  the  storehouse  of  all  experiences. 
Thus  the  descendants  of  the  patriarchal  families  saw 
themselves  as  Adam,  Methusaleh,  etc.  Of  course,  during 
the  centuries,  these  pictures  gradually  became  faint  and 
when  the  memory  of  Adam  faded  out  from  the  blood  of 
his  direct  descendants  it  was  said  that  Adam  ceased  to 
live. 

As  man  became  more  individualized,  he  was  to  learn  to 
stand  upon  his  own  legs  without  the  help  of  the  family 
spirit.  Then  international  marriages  were  permitted,  or 
even  commanded,  and  marrying  inside  the  family  was  no 
longer  allowed.  That  killed  clairvoyance.  Science  has 
demonstrated  that  when  the  blood  of  one  animal  is  inocu- 
lated into  the  veins  of  another  animal,  haemolysis,  or  the 
destruction  of  blood,  takes  place,  so  that  the  lower  animal 
is  killed.  But  the  introduction  of  strange  blood,  in  what- 
ever way  accomplished,  always  kills  something,  if  not  the 
form  at  least  a  faculty,  and  the  strange  blood  introduced 
by  marriage  killed  the  clairvoyance  possessed  by  primitive 
man.  That  this  statement  is  true  about  strange  blood 
being  destructive  can  be  noted  in  the  case  of  hybrids. 


50  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Where,  for  instance,  a  horse  and  a  donkey  are  mated  the 
progeny  is  a  mule,  but  that  mule  is  minus  the  propagative 
faculty,  for  it  is  neither  under  the  group  spirit  of  the 
horses  nor  under  the  dominion  of  the  group  spirit  of  the 
donkeys,  and  if  it  would  propagate,  the  result  would  be  a 
new  race  not  under  the  dominion  of  any  group  spirit.  The 
mule  is  not  so  far  evolved,  however,  that  it  can  guide  its 
instrument  without  the  assistance  of  a  group  spirit,  and  so 
the  propagative  faculty  is  denied  the  group  spirit  with- 
holding the  fructifying  seed  atom.  "With  humanity  it  was 
different,  however.  When  they  had  come  to  the  stage 
where  international  marriages  were  commanded,  they  had 
arrived  at  the  point  in  evolution  of  self-consciousness 
where  they  were  able  to  steer  their  own  bark  and  where 
they  must  cease  to  be  God-guided  automatons  and  become 
self-governing  individuals.  The  greater  the  mixture  of 
blood,  the  less  the  indwelling  spirit  can  be  influenced  by 
any  of  the  race  or  family  spirits  which  influenced  our  an- 
cestors. Thus  greater  scope  is  afforded  the  incoming  Egos 
when  we  marry  strangers  than  when  we  seek  a  cousin  for 
a  mate. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  51 

QUESTION  No.  24. 

Would  it  be  wise  for  two  people  of  the  same  tempera- 
ment to  marry  if  they  were  both  born  under  the  same  sign 
of  the  zodiac?-  In  August,  for  instance? 


Answer:  It  is  said  that  a  person  is  born  every  second 
of  the  day;  thus  there  would  be  3,600  born  in  an  hour. 
86.400  in  a  day  of  24  hours,  and  about  two  millions  and  a 
half  in  a  month.  If  they  were  supposed  to  have  the  same 
temperament  and  the  same  fate  in  life,  we  should  only 
have  twelve  kinds  of  people,  and  yet  we  know  that  there 
are  no  two  people  exactly  alike,  so  that  it  is  foolish  to  say 
that  people  have  the  same  temperament  because  they  are 
born  under  the  same  sign  of  the  zodiac,  as  determined  by 
the  month. 

To  cast  a  horoscope  scientifically,  it  is  necessary  to  take 
into  consideration  the  day  and  the  year  when  a  person 
was  born,  for  the  planets  do  not  arrive  at  the  same  rela- 
tive positions  more  than  once  in  twenty-five  thousand, 
eight  hundred  and  sixty-eight  years.  We  must  further 
take  into  consideration  the  hour  of  the  birth  and  if  possible 
try  to  get  the  minute,  on  account  of  the  swiftly  changing 
position  of  the  moon.  If  we  also  take  into  consideration 
the  place,  we  can  calculate  the  rising  sign,  which  gives  the 
form  of  the  body.  Then  we  have  an  absolutely  individual 
horoscope,  for  the  degree  of  the  zodiac  rising  on  the  eastern 
horizon  changes  every  four  minutes,  so  that  even  in  the 
case  of  twins  there  would  be  a  difference. 

In  order,  then,  that  the  astrologer  may  say  whether  the 
marriage  of  two  people  will  be  harmonious  or  otherwise, 
it  is  necessary  for  him  to  cast  the  horoscope  of  the  two 


52  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

persons  arid  endeavor  to  find  out  if  they  will  be  physically, 
morally  and  mentally  congenial.  The  judges  by  compar- 
ing the  ascendants,  or  rising  signs,  which  show  the  physical 
affinity.  The  position  of  Mars  and  Venus  will  show 
whether  they  are  morally  of  the  same  caliber,  and  the  Sun 
and  Moon  show  their  mental  characteristics.  Thus  he  has 
an  accurate  gauge  as  to  whether  their  natures  will  blend, 
but  predictions  based  upon  anything  short  of  such  a  calcu- 
lation are  worthless. 


QUESTION  No.  25. 

Please  give  the  views  of  the  occultist  regarding  the 
white  races  intermarrying  with  the  inferior  mongolians 
and  negroes;  also  in  regard  to  their  progeny? 


Answer:  The  human  spirit  is  neither  colored  nor 
white,  but  in  different  stages  of  its  progress  it  has  used 
black,  yellow  and  white  bodies,  and  it  is  the  belief  of  the 
writer  from  certain  indications  that  the  next  great  race 
will  be  a  beautiful  blue.  The  races  are  only  bodies,  used 
for  a  time  in  the  evolution  of  the  spirit,  and  we  at  one  time 
inhabited  the  black  bodies.  When  we  left  them,  other,  and 
less  advanced  spirits  took  possession  of  the  black  race 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  53 

bodies.  We  then  occupied  the  yellow  bodies.  Later  on  we 
left  also  the  yellow  bodies,  and  at  present  are  occupying 
the  white  ones.  Under  our  tenancy  these  various  bodies 
evolved  and  increased  in  efficiency,  but  naturally,  when 
'the  other  classes  of  spirits  which  are  not  as  far  advanced 
as  we  in  the  West,  entered  the  bodies  we  left,  those 
bodies  gradually  degenerated. 

These  lower  classes  of  spirits,  our  weaker  brothers,  have 
to  take  our  leavings;  therefore,  we  naturally  owe  them  a 
certain  debt,  and  marriage  with  the  lower  races  is  neces- 
sary in  order  to  create  something  higher.  The  negro 
bodies  of  the  South,  the  bodies  of  mulattoes,  mestizoes  and 
octoroons  are  much  superior  to  the  black  bodies  of  the 
negroes  in  Africa,  and  are,  of  course,  inhabited  by  a  much 
higher  grade  of  Ego  than  the  African  negro  body;  and 
thus  there  is  an  unbroken  ladder  maintained  all  the  time 
between  the  pioneers  and  the  lowest  races.  For,  as  the 
flower  would  be  an  impossibility  if  there  were  not  the  min- 
eral soil  wherein  it  can  grow,  so  also  is  a  white  race  with 
the  sensitive  bodies  and  high  strung  nerves  such  as  we  find 
in  the  West,  an  impossibility  if  it  were  not  that  we  as 
spirits  had  had  the  experience  gained  in  our  advancement 
through  the  lower  races.  The  debt  we  owe  to  those  who 
have  taken  our  leavings  must  be  canceled,  and  that  is  most 
successfully  accomplished  by  providing  the  intermediary 
links  which  bridge  the  gulf  between  race  and  race.  In  the 
case  of  the  Southern  negro  there  are  other  reasons — a  na- 
tional destiny  incurred  by  us  on  account  of  his  compulsory 
importation  and  subsequent  servitude. 


54  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 


.* 


QUESTION  No.  26. 


Why  is  the  negro  commonly  said  to  be  marked  with  the 
curse  of  Cain?  If  he  is  the  descendant  of  Ham,  accord- 
ing to  Biblical  ethnology,  how  can  that  race  be  any  older 
than  the  sons  of  Shem  or  Japhet?  Is  not  the  most  in~ 
tellectual,  successful  and  enduring  race  that  history  recordsf 
namely,  the  Jew,  the  one  that  has  left  itself  most  free  from 
a  mixture? 


Answer:  The  Bible  does  not  state  anywhere  that  the 
negroes  are  the  'descendants  of  Ham;  besides  it  is  well 
known  that  the  Biblical  ethnology  as  commonly  under- 
stood among  orthodox  people  is  an  utter  impossibility  in 
view  of  the  facts  of  geology  and  ethnological  research.  We 
are  past  the  day  when  anyone  will  dare  to  make  a  state- 
ment such  as,  for  instance,  was  made  by  a  learned  Dean 
of  Cambridge  University  less  than  a  century  ago,  namely, 
that  the  World  was  created  on  Friday,  the  10th  of  Oc- 
tober, 4004  B.  C.,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The 
Biblical  ethnology  also  has  the  exact  year  of  the  flood  and 
similar  events  fixed,  but  from  the  occult  point  of  view, 
which  is  derived  from  a  direct  reading  in  the  picture  gal- 
lery of  the  past,  which  we  call  the  memory  of  nature,  the 
case  is  very  different.  We  find  there  that  there  have  been 
various  epochs  or  great  stages  of  unfoldment  in  the  earth's 
history,  and  that  the  negro  was  the  humanity  of  the  third 
of  these  epochs,  the  Lemurian.  The  whole  human  race 
of  that  time  was  black  skinned.  Then  came  a  time,  called 
the  Atlantean  Epoch,  when  humanity  was  red,  yellow,  ex- 
cept one  race  which  was  white.  These  people  were  the 
Original  Semites,  the  fifth  of  the  Atlantean  Races.  These 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEES  55 

Atlanteans  are  called  Niebelungen,  or  children  of  the  mist, 
in  the  old  folk  stories,  for  at  that  time  the  atmosphere  of 
the  earth  was  a  very  dense  fog.  In  the  latter  half  of  the 
Atlantean  Epoch  this  atmosphere  condensed,  floods  re- 
sulted and  gradually  the  sea  covered  the  larger  part  of  the 
globe.  Then  the  atmosphere  became  clear  above  the  earth. 
This  point  in  evolution  is  described  in  the  Bible  where 
Noah,  the  leader  of  the  Semites,  came  out  from  the  drown^- 
ing  Atlantis  and  first  saw  the  rainbow,  a  phenomenon  im- 
possible in  the  foggy  atmosphere  of  early  Atlantis.  We 
also  hear  of  that  emigration  in  the  story  of  Moses  and  the 
Israelites  coming  out  from  Egypt  while  the  Egyptian  king 
and  his  men  drown  in  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea.  These 
people  had  been  chosen  to  become  the  progenitors  of  our 
present  Aryan  races,  but  not  all  of  them  were  true  to  the 
commands  of  their  leader.  There  were  some  of  them  who 
"went  after  strange  flesh,"  and  that  is  the  greatest  crime 
possible  at  such  a  time,  for  when  a  leader  is  aiming  to 
instil  new  faculties  into  a  new  race,  the  admixture  of 
strange  blood  has  a  tendency  to  frustrate  his  plans.  There- 
fore, some  of  these  chosen  people  were  lost,  that  is  to  say, 
they  were  abandoned  by  their  leaders  and  did  not  become 
the  forbears  of  the  new  humanity. 

Those  who  were  thus  lost  or  left  behind  are,  strange  to 
say,  the  present  day  Jews,  who  at  one  time  married  into 
the  families  of  their  Atlantean  brethren,  contrary  to  the 
commands  of  their  divine  leader,  and  yet  today  think 
themselves  the  "chosen  people"  of  God.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  earliest  Jews  remember  their  sin  in  marrying  out- 
side of  their  tribes.  Thus  they  instilled  into  their  de- 
scendants the  strong  dislike  against  mixing  with  other 
tribes,  and  so  these  rebels  have  since  been  faithful  to  the 
injunction  not  to  marry  among  the  Gentiles. 


56  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

As  for  their  being  intellectual  as  a  race,  we  say  No ! 
In  the  Polarian  Epoch  man  evolved  a  dense  body,  and  the 
vitalizing  principle  in  the  Hyperboreon  Epoch.  In  the 
Lemurian  Epoch  came  the  desire  body  to  give  in- 
centive to  action,  and  the  mind  was  added  in  the  Atlantean 
Epoch,  giving  to  man  cunning.  Thought,  or  reason,  is 
the  faculty  to  be  evolved  in  this  Aryan  epoch,  and  a  study 
of  facts  will  reveal  to  us  that  the  Jews  still  are  strongly 
actuated  by  the  Atlantean  faculty — cunning. 

The  leaders  of  humanity  have  been  endeavoring  to  get 
these  people  to  mix  with  the  other  races  in  order  that  they 
might  be  lifted  out  of  their  present  condition.  Their  Bible 
tells  us  how  they  have  been  exiled  time  and  again,  without 
avail;  they  have  remained  a  people  apart.  The  Christ  was 
sent  to  them  as  one  of  their  own,  because  it  was  thought 
that  they  would  take  the  word  of  one  from  among  their 
midst,  but  "they  chose  Barabbas."  That  was  the  last 
straw;  it  was  seen  that  it  was  impossible  to  save  them  in  a 
body.  Since  then  they  have  been  scattered  over  the  whole 
world,  a  people  without  a  country,  to  induce  them  to  amal- 
gamate in  that  way,  but  such  is  the  stiff-neckedness  of  this 
people  that  to  this  day  they  are  still  separate.  Here  in 
America,  however,  in  "the  Great  Melting  Pot,"  they  are 
beginning  to  slowly  amalgamate.  They  were  lost  by  marry- 
ing outside  their  tribe  into  a  lower  race,  but  in  time  they 
will  be  saved  by  marrying  into  the  more  advanced  races, 
here  upon  the  American  continent. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  57 

QUESTION  No.  27. 

Has  the  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  any  specific  teaching 
concerning  the  training  of  children? 


Answer:  There  is  perhaps  no  subject  of  greater  im- 
portance than  that.  In  the  first  place,  wise  parents  who 
are  desirous  of  giving  the  child  all  advantages,  commence 
before  the  birth  of  the  child,  even  before  the  conception, 
to  prayerfully  turn  their  thoughts  toward  the  task  they 
are  undertaking,  and  are  careful  to  see  that  the  union 
which  is  to  bring  about  the  germination  takes  place  under 
the  proper  stellar  influences,  when  the  moon  is  passing 
through  signs  which  are  appropriate  to  the  building  of  a 
strong  and  healthy  body,  having,  of  course,  their  own 
bodies  in  the  best  possible  physical,  moral  and  mental  con- 
dition. 

Then  during  the  period  of  gestation  they  hold  before 
their  mind's  eye  constantly  the  ideal  of  a  strong,  useful 
life  for  the  incoming  entity,  and  as  soon  as  possible  after 
birth  has  taken  place  they  cast  the  horoscope  of  the  child, 
for  the  ideal  parent  is  also  an  astrologer.  If  the  parents 
have  not  the  ability  to  cast  the  horoscope  themselves  they 
can  at  least  study  the  stellar  signs  that  will  enable  them 
to  intelligently  underftand  what  the  astrologer  tells  them; 
but  under  no  circumstances  will  they  consult  a  professional 
astrologer  to  help  them,  one  who  prostitutes  the  science 
for  gold,  but  will  seek  the  aid  of  a  spiritual  astrologer, 
though  they  may  have  to  seek  some  time.  From  the  child's 
natal  chart  the  strength  and  weaknesses  of  its  character 
can  be  readily  seen.  The  parents  will  then  be  in  the  best 
position  possible  to  foster  the  good  and  take  appropriate 


58  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

means  to  repress  the  evil  before  the  tendencies  work  them- 
selves out  into  actualities,  and  thus  they  may  in  a  large 
measure  help  the  incoming  entity  to  overcome  his  faults. 

Next,  the  parent  must  realize  that  that  which  we  term 
birth  is  only  the  birth  of  the  visible,  physical  body,  which 
is  born  and  comes  to  its  present  high  stage  of  efficiency 
in  a  shorter  time  than  the  invisible  vehicles  of  man,  be- 
cause it  has  had  the  longest  evolution.  As  the  foetus 
is  shielded  from  the  impacts  of  the  visible  world  by 
being  encased  in  the  protecting  womb  of  the  mother  during 
the  period  of  gestation,  ?o  are  also  the  subtler  vehicles  en- 
cased in  envelopes  of  ether  and  desire  stuff  which  protects 
them  until  they  have  sufficiently  matured,  and  are  able 
to  withstand  the  conditions  of  the  outer  world. 

Thus  the  vital  body  is  born  at  about  the  age  of  seven,  or 
the  time  when  the  child  cuts  its  second  teeth,  and  the 
desire  body  is  born  at  about  fourteen,  or  the  time  of 
puberty.  The  mind  comes  to  birth  at  about  twenty-one, 
when  we  say  a  man  has  reached  majority. 

There  are  certain  important  matters  which  can  be  taken 
care  of  only  during  the  appropriate  period  of  growth,  and 
the  parent  should  know  what  these  are.  Though  the  organs 
have  been  formed  by  the  time  the  child  comes  to  birth,  the 
lines  of  growth  are  determined  during  the  first  seven  years, 
and  if  they  are  not  properly  outlined  during  that  time,  an 
otherwise  healthy  child  may  become  a  sickly  man  or  woman. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  St.  John,  we  read  that  "In  the  be- 
ginning was  the  word  .  .  .  And  without  it  was  not 
anything  made  that  was  made  .  .  .  and  the  word  be- 
came flesh."  The  word  is  a  rhythmic  sound,  and  sound  is 
the  great  cosmic  builder,  therefore  during  that  first  sep- 
tenary epoch  of  its  life  the  child  should  be  surrounded  by 
music  of  the  right  kind,  by  musical  language — the  swing 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEES  59 

and  rhythm  of  nursery  rhymes  being  particularly  valuable. 
It  does  not  matter  about  the  sense  at  all;  what  matters  is 
the  rhythm;  the  more  the  child  has  of  that,  the  healthier 
it  will  grow. 

There  are  two  great  watchwords  which  apply  to  this 
period  of  a  child's  life.  They  are  called  imitation  and 
example.  There  is  no  creature  in  the  world  so  imitative 
as  a  little  child;  it  follows  our  example  to  the  smallest 
detail  so  far  as  it  is  able.  Therefore,  the  parents  who  seek 
to  bring  up  their  child  well  will  ever  be  careful  when  in 
the  presence  of  the  little  one.  It  is  no  use  to  teach  it  not 
to  mind ;  the  child  has  no  mind,  it  has  no  reason,  it  can 
only  imitate,  and  it  cannot  help  imitating  any  more  than 
water  can  help  running  down  hill.  If  we  have  one  kind  of 
food  for  ourselves  which  is  highly  seasoned  and  cooked  in 
French  style,  perhaps,  and  we  give  our  child  another  dish, 
telling  it  that  what  we  eat  is  not  good  for  it,  the  child  may 
not  then  be  able  to  imitate  us,  but  we  implant  the  appetite 
for  such  food  in  the  little  one.  When  it  grows  up  and  can 
gratify  its  taste  it  will  do  so.  Therefore,  the  careful  par- 
ents 'hould  abstain  from  the  foods  and  liquors  they  do  not 
wish  their  child  to  partake  of. 

Regarding  the  clothing,  wre  may  say  that  at  that  time 
the  child  should  be  entirely  unconscious  of  its  sex  organs, 
and  therefore  the  clothing  should  be  particularly  loose  at 
all  times.  This  is  specially  necessary  with  little  boys,  for 
oftentimes  a  most  seriously  bad  habit  in  later  life  may  re- 
sult from  the  rubbing  of  too  tight  clothing. 

There  is  also  the  question  of  punishment  to  be  consid- 
ered; that  too  is  an  important  factor  at  all  times  in 
awakening  the  sex  nature  and  should  be  carefully  avoided. 
There  is  no  child  so  refractory  that  it  will  not  respond  to 
the  method  of  reward  for  good  deeds  and  the  withholding  of 


60  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

privileges  as  retribution  for  disobedience.  Besides,  we  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  whipping  breaks  the  spirit  of  a  dog,  and 
we  oftentimes  complain  that  certain  people  have  cultivated 
a  wishbone  instead  of  a  backbone — that  they  are  lacking  in 
will.  Much  of  that  is  due  to  whippings,  mercilessly  ad- 
ministered in  childhood.  Let  any  parent  look  at  this  from 
the  child's  standpoint.  How  would  any  of  us  now  like  to 
live  with  someone  from  whose  authority  we  could  not  es- 
cape, who  was  much  bigger  than  we,  and  have  to  submit 
to  whippings  day  by  day?  Leave  the  whipping  alone  and 
much  of  the  social  evil  will  be  done  away  with  in  a  genera- 
tion. 

When  the  vital  body  has  been  brought  to  birth  at  the 
seventh  year,  the  faculties  of  perception  and  memory  are 
to  be  educated.  The  watchword  for  this  period  should  be 
authority  and  disciphship.  We  should  not,  if  we  have  a 
precocious  child,  seek  to  goad  it  into  a  course  of  study 
which  requires  an  enormous  expenditure  of  thought.  Child 
prodigies  have  usually  become  men  and  women  of  less  than 
ordinary  mentality.  The  child  should  be  allowed  to  follow 
his  own  inclination  in  that  respect.  His  faculties  of  ob- 
servation should  be  cultivated,  he  should  be  shown  living 
examples.  Let  him  see  the  drunkard  and  what  vice  has  led 
him  to;  show  him  also  the  good  man,  and  set  before  him 
high  ideals.  Teach  him  to  take  everything  you  say  upon 
authority  and  endeavor  to  be  such  that  he  may  respect  your 
authority  as  parents  and  teachers.  At  this  time  he  should 
also  be  prepared  to  husband  the  force  which  is  now  being 
awakened  in  him,  and  which  will  enable  him  to  generate 
his  kind  at  the  end  of  the  second  period  of  seven  years.  He 
should  not  be  allowed  to  gather  that  knowledge  from  pol- 
luted sources,  because  the  parents  shirk  the  responsibility  of 
telling  him  from  a  mistaken  sense  of  modesty.  A  flower 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  61 

may  be  taken  as  an  object  lesson,  whence  all  the  children, 
from  the  smallest  to  the  biggest,  may  receive  the  most 
beautiful  instruction  in  the  form  of  a  fairy  tale.  They  may 
be  taught  how  flowers  are  like  families  without  bothering  at 
all  with  botanical  terms,  so  long  as  the  parents  have  studied 
in  the  slightest  degree  a  little  elementary  botany.  Show 
the  children  some  flowers.  Tell  them  "Here  is  a  flower 
family  where  there  are  all  boys  (a  staminate  flower),  and 
here  is  another  flower  where  there  are  only  girls  (a  pistilate 
flower).  Here  is  one  where  there  are  both  boys  and  girls 
(a  flower  where  there  are  both  stamen  and  pistils).  Show 
them  the  pollen  in  the  anthers.  Tell  them  that  these  little 
flower  boys  are  just  like  the  boys  in  the  human  families; 
that  they  are  adventuresome  and  want  to  go  out  into  the 
world  to  fight  the  battle  of  life,  while  the  girls  (the  pistils) 
stay  at  home.  Show  them  the  bees  with  the  pollen  basket^ 
on  their  legs,  and  tell  them  how  the  little  flower  boys  be- 
stride those  winged  steeds,  like  the  knights  of  old,  and  go 
out  into  the  world  to  seek  the  princess  immured  in  the 
magic  castle  (the  ovule  hidden  in  the  pistil)  ;  how  the  little 
pollen,  the  flower  boy-knights,  force  their  way  through  the 
pistil  and  enter  the  ovule;  then  tell  them  how  that  signi- 
fies that  the  knight  and  the  princess  are  married,  that  they 
live  happy  ever  afterward  and  become  the  parents  of  many 
little  flower  boys  and  girls.  When  they  have  fully  grasped 
that,  they  will  understand  also  the  generation  in  the  animal 
and  human  kingdom,  for  there  is  no  difference ;  one  is  just 
as  pure  and  chaste  and  holy  as  the  other.  And  the  little 
children  brought  up  in  that  way  will  always  have  a  rever- 
ence for  the  creative  function  that  can  be  instilled  in  no 
better  way. 

When  a  child  has  been  thus  equipped,  it  is  well  fortified 
for  the  birth  of  the  desire  body  at  the  time  of  puberty. 


62  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

When  the  desires  and  the  emotions  are  unleashed,  it  enters 
upon  the  most  dangerous  period  of  its  life,  the  time  of  the 
hot  youth  from  fourteen  to  twenty-one,  for  at  that  time  the 
desire  body  is  rampant  and  the  mind  has  not  yet  come  to 
birth  to  act  as  a  brake.  At  this  time  it  is  well  for  the 
child  that  has  been  brought  up  as  here  outlined,  for  its  par- 
ents will  then  be  a  strength  and  an  anchor  to  it  to  tide  it 
over  that  troublesome  period  until  the  time  when  it  is  full 
born — the  age  of  twenty-one,  when  the  mind  is  born. 


QUESTION  No.  28. 

Why  are  children  born  in  a  family  where  they  are  not 
welcome? 


Answer:  It  shows  a  sad  state  of  society  when  a  question 
such  as  this  can  be  relevant,  as,  unfortunately,  it  is.  The 
primal  purpose  of  marriage  is  the  perpetuation  of  the  race 
and  people  who  are  not  willing  to  become  parents  have  no 
right  to  marry.  It  should  be  the  right  of  every  child  to  be 
well  born,  and  welcome.  But  while  we  are  careful  to  seek 
out  the  best  strain  in  the  animals  which  we  use  for  breeding 
purposes,  in  order  that  we  may  get  the  hardiest  and  best 
stock,  we  usually  do  not  think  at  all  of  the  physical,  moral 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  63 

and  mental  fitness  of  the  one  we  select  to  be  the  father  or 
the  mother  of  our  children.  In  fact,  it  is  usually  consid- 
ered indelicate  if  not  indecent  to  think  of  children  at  all, 
and  when  they  come  in  spite  of  preventatives,  the  parents 
are  often  distracted  with  grief.  But  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  is  not  to  be  thwarted.  The  mills  of  the  Gods  grind 
slowly  but  they  are  sure  to  grind  very  small,  and  though 
the  centuries  may  pass  by,  there  will  come  a  time  when  the 
one  who  is  an  unwilling  parent  must  himself  seek  an  em- 
bodiment anew,  and  perhaps  he  will  then  be  reborn  into  a 
family  where  he  is  not  welcome.  Or  perhaps  the  unwilling 
parent  of  one  life  becomes  a  childless  one  in  the  next. 
Cases  are  also  known  to  the  writer  where  such  a  couple  has 
been  blessed  with  numerous  children  whom  they  desired 
and  passionately  loved,  but  who  died  in  childhood  one  after 
another  to  the  great  grief  of  the  parents. 


QUESTION  No.  29. 

Where  children  do  not  come  to  a  man  and  wife  who 
deeply  long  for  them,  is  there  not  some  way  to  induce  some 
soul  in  the  unseen  world  to  accept  their  invitations  to 
reincarnate?  Where  the  conditions  in  the  home  are  most 
favorable,  it  would  seem  that  among  the  many  souls  await' 
ing  incarnation  one  would  find  the  conditions  right. 


Answer:     This   is  undoubtedly   one   of  the   conditions 
where  the  would-be  parents  have  some  time  in  a  previous 


64  BOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

life  neglected  their  opportunity,  or,  perhaps,  have  taken 
precautions  to  avoid  begetting  children.  Or,  if  this  is  not 
the  case,  it  may  be  that  at  a  later  day  their  hopes  will  be 
fulfilled.  The  writer  has  observed  a  case  where  a  spirit 
seeking  incarnation  followed  the  mother  about,  and  he  was 
told  by  someone  else  who  had  known  the  mother  that  that 
Ego  had  been  following  her  from  before  her  marriage. 
The  marriage  proved  barren,  however,  and  only  recently 
came  the  news  of  the  divorce.  It  was  plain  that  although 
this  Ego  evidently  desired  incarnation  through  the  mother, 
it  refused  the  father.  We  sometimes  hear  of  marriages 
which  are  barren,  and  then  when  the  marriage  contract  has 
been  dissolved  and  the  partners  have  each  remarried,  both 
have  become  parents,  showing  that  they  were  perfectly  able 
to  become  parents  from  the  physical  standpoint,  and  that 
it  was  the  incarnating  Ego  that  was  lacking.  For  this 
should  be  noted,  that  unless  there  is  an  Ego  seeking  em- 
bodiment through  a  married  couple,  their  efforts  will  be 
fruitless.  From  the  ordinary  standpoint  that  would  not 
appear  to  be  so,  but  it  will  be  readily  seen  that  as  the1 
chemical  constituents  of  the  semen  and  the  ova  are  at  all 
times  the  same,  there  would  be  no  reason  why  a  union  of 
the  sexes  should  be  fruitful  at  one  time  and  barren  at  an- 
other if  they  were  the  only  factors.  We  know  that  if  we  mix 
hydrogen  and  oxygen  in  proper  proportions  we  always  get 
water;  we  know  that  water  will  always  flow  down  hill;  and 
thus  all  the  laws  of  nature  are  invariable,  so  that  unless 
there  were  another  factor  than  the  chemical  mixture  of 
semen  and  ova  there  would  always  be  issue.  And  this  un- 
known and  unseen  factor  is  the  reincarnating  Ego  which 
goes  only  where  it  pleases  and  without  which  there  can  be 
no  issue. 

If  the  inquirer  will  pray  earnestly  to  the  angel  Gabriel, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  65 

who  is  the  ambassador  of  the  Eegent  of  the  Moon  to  the 
earth,  and  therefore  a  prime  factor  in  the  generation  of 
bodies  (vide  the  Bible),  it  may  possibly  avail  to  bring  the 
desired  result.  The  best  time  is  Monday  at  sunrise,  and 
from  the  new  Moon  to  the  full. 


QUESTION  No.  30. 

How  do  you  explain  the  fact  that  a  child  so  often  inherits 
the  bad  characteristics  of  the  parents? 


Answer:  We  explain  by  saying  that  it  is  not  a  fact.  Un- 
fortunately, people  seem  to  lay  their  bad  traits  to  heredity, 
blaming  their  parents  for  their  faults,  while  taking  to  them- 
selves all  the  credit  for  the  good.  The  very  fact  that  we 
differentiate  between  that  which  is  inherited  and  that  which 
is  our  own,  shows  that  there  are  two  sides  to  man's  nature, 
the  side  of  the  form  and  the  life  side. 

The  man,  the  thinker,  comes  here  equipped  with  a  mental 
and  a  moral  nature,  which  are  entirely  his  own,  taking  from 
his  parents  only  the  material  for  the  physical  body.  We 
are  drawn  to  certain  people  by  the  law  of  causation,  and 
the  law  of  association.  The  same  law  which  causes  mu- 
sicians to  seek  the  company  of  one  another  in  concert  halls, 


66  KOS1CRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

gamblers  to  congregate  at  the  race  tracks  or  in  pool  rooms, 
people  of  a  studious  nature  to  flock  to  libraries,  etc.,  also 
causes  people  of  similar  tendencies,  characteristics,  and 
tastes  to  be  born  in  the  same  family.  Thus,  when  we  hear 
a  person  say,  "Yes,  I  know  I  am  thriftless,  but  then  my 
people  never  were  used  to  work,  we  always  had  servants/' 
it  shows  that  similarity  of  tastes  and  nothing  more  is 
needed  to  explain  it.  When  another  person  says,  "Oh, 
yes,  I  know  I  am  extravagant,  but  I  just  cannot  help  it,  it 
runs  in  the  family,"  it  is  again  the  law  of  association,  and 
the  sooner  we  recognize  that  instead  of  making  the  law  of 
heredity  an  excuse  for  our  evil  habits,  we  should  seek 
to  conquer  them  and  cultivate  virtues  instead,  the  better  for 
us.  We  would  not  recognize  it  as  a  valid  excuse  if  the 
drunkard  should  say,  "No,  I  cannot  help  drinking,  all  my 
associates  drink."  We  would  tell  him  to  get  away  from 
them  as  quickly  as  possible  and  assert  his  own  individuality, 
and  we  would  advise  people  to  cease  shielding  themselves 
behind  their  ancestors  as  an  excuse  for  bad  habits. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  67 

QUESTION  No.  31. 

Does  not  the  cliild  inherit  its  blood  and  nervous  system 
from  its  parents?  If  so,  will  it  not  inherit  disease  and 
nervous  disorders  also? 


Answer:  In  the  foetus,  in  the  lower  part  of  the  throat 
just  above  the  sternum  or  breast  bone,  there  is  a  gland 
called  the  thymus  gland,  which  is  largest  during  the  period 
of  gestation  and  which  gradually  atrophies  as  the  child 
grows  older  and  disappears  entirely  by  or  before  the  four- 
teenth year,  very  often  when  the  bones  have  been  properly 
formed.  Science  has  been  very  much  puzzled  as  to  the  use 
of  this  gland,  and  few  theories  have  been  advanced  to  ac- 
count for  it.  Among  these  theories  one  is  that  it  supplies 
the  material  for  the  manufacture  of  the  red  blood  corpuscles 
until  the  bones  have  been  properly  formed  in  the  child  so 
that  it  may  manufacture  its  own  blood  corpuscles.  That 
theory  is  correct. 

During  the  earliest  years  the  Ego  which  owns  the 
child-body  is  not  in  full  possession,  and  we  recognize  that 
the  child  is  not  responsible  for  its  doings,  at  any  rate  not 
before  the  seventh  year,  and  later  we  have  extended  it  to 
the  fourteenth  year.  During  that  time  no  legal  liability  for 
its  action  attaches  to  the  child,  and  that  is  as  it  should  be, 
for  the  Ego  being  in  the  blood  can  only  function  properly 
in  blood  of  its  own  making,  so  that  where,  as  in  the  child- 
body,  the  stock  of  the  blood  is  furnished  by  the  parents 
through  the  thymus  gland,  the  child  is  not  yet  its  own 
master  or  mistress.  Thus  it  is  that  children  do  not  speak 
of  themselves  so  much  as  "I"  in  the  earlier  years,  but  iden- 
tify themselves  with  the  family;  they  are  Papa's  girl  and 


68  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Mama's  boy.  The  young  child  will  say  "Mary  wants"  this 
or  "Johnny  wants  that/'  but  as  soon  as  they  have  attained 
the  age  of  puberty  and  have  begun  to  manufacture  their 
own  blood  corpuscles,  then  we  hear  the  boy  or  girl  say,  "I" 
will  do  this  or  "I"  will  do  that.  From  that  time  they  begin 
to  assert  their  own  identity,  and  to  tear  themselves  loose 
from  the  family. 

Seeing,  then,  that  the  blood  throughout  the  years  of 
childhood,  as  well  as  the  body,  is  inherited  from  the  par- 
ents, the  tendencies  to  disease  are  also  carried  over,  not  the 
disease  itself  but  the  tendency.  After  the  fourteenth  year, 
when  the  indwelling  Ego  has  commenced  to  manufacture 
its  own  blood  corpuscles,  it  depends  a  great  deal  upon  itself 
whether  or  not  these  tendencies  shall  become  manifested 
actualities  in  its  life. 


QUESTION  No.  32. 

Can  a  person  be  influenced  in  natural  sleep  as  he  can  in 
hypnotic  sleep,  or  is  there  a  difference? 


Answer:  Yes,  there  is  a  difference.  In  the  natural  sleep 
the  Ego,  clothed  in  the  mind  and  desire  body,  draws  out- 
side the  physical  body  and  usually  hovers  over  the  body,  or 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  69 

at  any  rate  remains  close  to  it,  connected  by  the  silver  cord, 
while  the  vital  body  and  the  dense  body  are  resting  upon 
the  bed. 

It  is  then  possible  to  influence  the  person  by  instilling 
into  his  brain  the  thoughts  and  ideas  we  wish  to  communi- 
cate. Nevertheless,  we  cannot  then  get  him  to  do  anything 
or  to  entertain  any  idea  except  that  which  is  in  line  with 
his  natural  proclivities.  It  is  impossible  to  command  him 
to  do  anything  and  to  enforce  obedience,  the  same  as  it  is 
when  he  has  been  driven  out  by  the  passes  of  the  hypnotist, 
for  it  is  the  brain  which  moves  the  muscles,  and  during  the 
natural  sleep  his  brain  is  interpenetrated  by  his  own  vital 
body  and  he  is  in  perfect  control  himself,  while  during  the 
hypnotic  sleep  the  passes  of  the  hypnotist  have  driven  the 
ether  of  which  his  vital  body  is  composed  out  of  the  brain, 
down  to  the  shoulders  of  the  victim,  where  it  lies  around  his 
neck  and  resembles  the  collar  of  a  sweater.  The  dense 
brain  is  then  open  to  the  ether  from  the  hypnotist's  vital 
body,  which  displaces  that  of  the  proper  owner.  Thus  in 
the  hypnotic  sleep  the  victim  has  no  choice  whatever  as  to 
the  ideas  he  entertains  or  the  movements  he  makes  with  his 
body,  but  in  the  ordinary  sleep  he  is  still  a  free  agent. 
In  tact,  this  method  of  suggestion  during  sleep  is  some- 
thing which  mothers  will  find  extremely  beneficial  in  treat- 
ing refractory  children,  for  if  the  mother  will  sit  by  the 
bed  of  the  sleeping  child,  hold  its  hand,  speak  to  it  as  she 
would  speak  when  it  is  awake,  instill  into  its  brain  ideas  of 
such  a  nature  as  she  would  wish  it  to  entertain,  she  will 
find  that  in  the  waking  state  many  of  these  ideas  will  have 
taken  root.  Also  in  dealing  with  a  person  who  is  sick  or  is 
addicted  to  drink,  if  the  mother,  nurse  or  others  use  this 
method,  they  will  find  it  possible  to  instill  hope  and  heal- 
ing, materially  furthering  recovery  or  aiding  self-mastery. 


70  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

.This  method  may  of  course  be  used  for  evil,  but  we  cannot 
refrain  from  publishing  it,  as  we  believe  that  the  good 
which  can  be  done  in  this  way  will  much  more  than  offset) 
the  few  cases  where  some  misguided  person  may  use  it  for 
the  wrong  purpose. 


QUESTION  No.  33. 

What  are  dreams?    Have  they  all  a  significance,  and 
how  can  we  invite  or  induce  dreams? 


Answer:  In  the  waking  state,  the  different  vehicles  of 
the  Ego,  the  mind,  desire  body,  vital  body  and  dense  body 
are  all  concentric.  They  occupy  the  same  space,  and  the 
Ego  functions  outwardly  in  the  Physical  World.  But  at 
night,  during  the  dreamless  sleep,  the  Ego,  clothed  in  the 
desire  body  and  the  mind,  withdraws,  leaving  the  physical 
and  the  vital  body  upon  the  bed,  there  being  no  connection 
between  the  higher  and  the  lower  vehicles,  save  a  thin, 
glistening  thread,  called  the  silver  cord.  It  happens,  how- 
ever, that  at  times  the  Ego  has  been  working  so  inter- 
estedly in  the  Physical  World  and  the  desire  body  has  be- 
come so  stirred  up  that  it  refuses  to  leave  the  lower  vehicles 
and  is  only  half  withdrawn.  Then  the  connection  between 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  71 

the  sense  centers  of  the  desire  body  and  the  sense  centers 
of  the  physical  brain  are  partly  ruptured.  The  Ego  sees 
the  sights  and  scenes  of  the  Desire  World  which,  in  them- 
selves, are  extremely  fantastic  and  illusory,  and  they  are 
transmitted  to  the  brain  centers  without  being  connected 
by  reason.  From  this  condition  come  all  the  foolish  and 

fantastic  dreams  which  we  have. 

h 

It  happens  at  times,  however,  that  when  the  Ego  is 
altogether  outside  the  dense  body,  as  in  dreamless  sleep,  it 
sees  an  event  concerning  itself  about  to  materialize,  for 
coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before,  and  ere  anything 
happens  in  the  material  world  it  has  already  happened  in 
the  spiritual  worlds.  If,  upon  awaking  from  such  an  ex- 
perience, the  Ego  succeeds  in  impressing  the  brain  with 
what  it  has  seen,  we  have  a  prophetic  dream,  which  in  due1 
time  will  come  true,  or  which  the  Ego,  if  its  Fate  permits, 
may  modify  by  a  new  action.  For  instance,  if  warned  of  an 
accident,  it  may  take  steps  to  counteract  the  impending 
calamity. 

Eegarding  the  second  part  of  the  question,  "How  can  we 
invite  or  induce  dreams,"  we  may  say  that,  of  course,  it  is 
of  no  advantage  to  invite  or  induce  dreams  of  the  confused 
and  fantastic  kind,  and,  as  for  the  other  kind,  there  comes 
a  time  in  a  man's  life  when  he  begins  to  live  the  higher 
life.  Then,  gradually,  by  certain  exercises,  he  evolves  the 
faculty  of  leaving  his  body  consciously  at  night  or  at  any 
other  time.  He  is  then  perfectly  conscious  in  the  invisible 
worlds.  He  can  go  wherever  he  pleases  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth  in  minutes  of  time  and  as  he  learns  how  to  con- 
sciously work  in  those  invisible  worlds,  he  does  not  "dream'* 
any  longer,  but  lives  another  life  that  is  fuller  or  more 
real  than  the  one  he  now  lives. 


72  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  34. 
What  is  sleep  and  what  causes  the  body  to  go  to  sleep? 


Answer:  During  the  daytime  the  vital  body  specializes 
the  colorless  solar  fluid  which  is  all  about  us,  through  the 
organ  we  call  the  spleen.  This  vitality  permeates  the 
whole  body  and  is  seen  by  the  clairvoyant  as  a  fluid  of  a 
pale  rose  color,  having  been  transmuted  upon  entering  the 
physical  body.  It  flows  along  every  nerve,  and  when  it  is 
sent  out  by  the  brain  centers  in  particularly  large  quantities 
it  moves  the  muscles  to  which  the  nerves  lead. 

The  vital  body  may  be  said  to  be  built  of  points  which 
stick  out  in  all  directions,  inward,  outward,  upward  and 
downward,  all  through  the  body,  and  each  little  point  goes 
through  the  center  of  one  of  the  chemical  atoms,  causing 
it  to  vibrate  at  a  higher  rate  than  its  natural  speed.  This 
vital  body  interpenetrates  the  dense  body  from  birth  to- 
death  under  all  conditions  except  when,  for  instance,  the 
blood  circulation  stops  in  a  certain  part,  as  when  we  rest 
a  hand  upon  the  edge  of  a  table  for  some  time  and  it  "goes 
to  sleep,"  as  we  say.  Then,  if  clairvoyant,  we  may  see  the 
etheric  hand  of  the  vital  body  hanging  down  below  the4 
visible  hand  as  a  glove,  and  the  chemical  atoms  of  the  hand 
relapse  into  their  natural  slow  rate  of  vibration.  When  we 
slap  the  hand  to  cause  it  to  "wake  up,"  as  we  say,  the 
peculiar  prickling  sensation  we  feel  is  caused  by  the  points 
of  the  vital  body  which  then  reenter  the  sleeping  atoms  of 
the  hand  and  start  them  into  renewed  vibration. 

The  vital  body  leaves  the  dense  body  in  a  similar  man- 
ner when  a  person  is  dying.  Drowning  persons  who  have 
been  resuscitated  experience  an  intense  agony  caused  by  the 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  73 

entrance  of  these  points,  which  they  feel  as  a  prickling 
sensation.  f 

During  the  daytime,  when  the  solar  fluid  is  being  ab- 
sorbed by  the  man  in  great  quantities,  these  points  of  the 
vital  body  are  blown  out  or  distended,  as  it  were,  by  the 
vital  fluid,  but  as  the  day  advances  and  poisons  of  decay 
clog  the  physical  body  more  and  more,  the  vital  fluid 
flows  less  rapidly;  in  the  evening  there  comes  a  time  when 
the  points  in  the  vital  body  do  not  get  a  full  supply  of  the 
life  giving  fluid;  they  shrivel  up  and  the  atoms  of  the  body 
move  more  sluggishly  in  consequence.  Thus  the  Ego  feels 
the  body  to  be  heavy,  dull  and  tired.  At  last  there  comes  a 
time  when,  as  it  were,  the  vital  body  collapses  and  the 
vibrations  of  the  dense  atoms  become  so  slow  that  the  Ego 
can  no  longer  move  the  body.  It  is  forced  to  withdraw 
in  order  that  its  vehicle  may  recuperate.  Then  we  say  the 
body  has  gone  to  sleep. 

Sleep  is  not  an  inactive  state,  however;  if  it  were  there 
would  be  no  difference  in  feeling  in  the  morning  and  no 
restorative  power  in  sleep.  The  very  word  restoration  im- 
plies activity. 

When  a  building  has  become  dilapidated  from  constant 
wear  and  tear  and  it  is  necessary  to  renovate  and  restore  it, 
the  tenants  must  move  out  to  give  the  workmen  full  play. 
For  similar  reasons  the  Ego  moves  out  of  its  tenement  at 
night.  As  the  workmen  work  upon  the  building,  to  make 
it  fit  for  re-occupancy,  so  the  Ego  must  work  upon  its  build- 
ing before  it  will  be  fit  to  reenter.  And  such  a  work  is  done 
by  us  during  the  nighttime,  although  we  are  not  conscious 
of  it  in  our  waking  state.  It  is  this  activity  which  re- 
moves the  poisons  from  the  system,  and  as  a  result  the  body 
is  fresh  and  vigorous  in  the  morning  when  the  Ego  enters 
at  the  time  of  waking. 


74  KOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  35. 

Do  the  Rosicrucians  believe  in  materia  medica,  or  do  they 
follow  Christ's  method  of  healing? 


Answer:  It  is  generally  acknowledged  by  the  best  prac- 
titioners that  materia  medica  is  an  empirical  science;  that 
drugs  do  not  act  in  the  same  way  on  all  persons,  and  that,1 
therefore,  it  is  necessary  for  the  physician  to  experiment 
with  his  patients.  Hence  materia  medica  is  unsatisfactory. 
Drugs  cannot  be  relied  upon  to  do  the  work  at  all  times. 

Observation  shows  that  while  all  oxen  will  thrive  on 
grass;  and  all  lions  are  content  with  a  diet  of  flesh,  we  find 
in  the  human  being  that  there  is  always  an  individuality 
which  makes  each  different  from  all  the  rest  of  his  kind; 
and  this  peculiarity  of  the  human  race  arises  from  the  fact 
that  while  each  species  of  animals  is  the  expression  of  one 
single  group  spirit  which  guides  the  separate  animals  from 
without,  there  is  in  each  human  being  an  individual  in- 
dwelling  spirit,  an  Ego,  and  therefore  one  man's  meat  is 
often  another's  poison. 

It  is  only  when  materia  medica  takes  this  point  into  con- 
sideration that  it  can  be  of  real  service  in  all  cases,  and 
the  way  to  find  out  the  peculiarities  of  the  spirit  that  dwells 
in  the  patient  body  is  to  cast  his  horoscope  to  see  when  the 
times  are  propitious  for  the  administration  of  drugs,  giving 
the  appropriate  herbs  at  the  proper  time.  Paracelsus  did 
that,  and  therefore  he  was  always  successful  with  his  pa- 
tients ;  he  never  made  a  mistake.  There  are  some  who  use 
astrology  for  that  purpose  today;  the  writer,  for  instance, 
has  thus  used  it  in  diagnosis  in  many  cases.  He  has  then 
always  been  able  to  see  the  crises  in  the  patient's  condition, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  75 

the  past,  present  and  the  future;  and  has  thus  been  able 
to  afford  much  relief  to  persons  suffering  from  various  ill- 
nesses, it  is  to  such  uses  that  astrology  should  be  put,  and 
not  degraded  into  fortune  telling  for  the  sake  of  gold,  for, 
like  all  spiritual  sciences,  it  ought  to  be  used  for  the  benefit 
of  humanity,  regardless  of  mercenary  considerations.  If 
physicians  would  study  the  science  of  astrology,  they  would 
thus  with  a  very  slight  effort  be  able  to  diagnose  their  pa- 
tients' condition  in  a  manner  altogether  impossible  from 
the  ordinary  diagnostician's  point  of  view.  Some  phy- 
sicians are  waking  up  to  that  fact  and  have  discovered 
by  their  experiences  that  the  heavenly  bodies  have  an  in- 
fluence upon  the  human  frame.  For  instance,  when  the 
writer  was  in  Portland,  Oregon,  a  physician  mentioned  as 
his  observation  that  whenever  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
perform  an  operation  while  the  moon  was  increasing  in 
light,  that  is  to  say,  going  from  the  new  to  the  full  moon, 
the  operation  was  always  successful  and  no  complications 
would  set  in.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  found  that  when 
circumstances  compelled  him  to  perform  an  operation  when 
the  moon  was  going  from  the  full  to  the  dark  there  was 
great  danger  of  trouble,  and  that  such  operations  were 
never  as  satisfactory  as  those  performed  while  the  light  of 
the  moon  was  increasing. 

There  is  also  a  tendency  among  physicians  more  and 
more  to  cure  by  suggestion,  giving  to  the  patient  a  harmless 
pill  and  a  good  suggestion.  Every  mother,  whether  she 
knows  the  potency  of  suggestion  or  not,  at  times  uncon- 
sciously applies  it  in  the  case  of  her  child.  If  the  little 
one  falls,  she  may  by  her  suggestion  cause  it  to  either  cry 
or  laugh.  If  she  says  to  the  little  one,  "Oh,  you  poor  little 
baby,  you've  hurt  yourself  very  bad,  that  poor  little  head 
of  yours,"  the  child  will  commence  to  cry;  but  if,  on  the 


76  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

other  hand,  she  points  to  the  floor  and  exclaims,  "Oh,  dear, 
how  you  hurt  that  poor  floor,  why  that  is  too  bad — kiss  it !" 
the  child  will  be  very  sorry  it  hurt  the  floor,  thinking  not  at 
all  of  its  own  lesions. 

In  a  similar  manner  the  physician  influences  his  patient, 
and  it  is  criminal  for  a  physician  to  enter  the  sickroom  with 
a  gloom}7  mien,  asking  the  patient  to  make  his  will,  telling 
him  that  he  has  not  long  to  live.  Those  things  act  upon 
the  patient  in  a  manner  far  greater  than  realized,  and  many 
a  physician  has  thus  killed  those  whom  he  might  have 
saved.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  is  cheerful  and  comes  into 
the  sickroom  with  a  smile  and  an  encouraging  word,  if  he 
gives  a  harmless  cure  and  a  good  suggestion  the  patient  is 
apt  to  recover  where  otherwise  he  might  succumb  to  the  dis- 
ease. Thus,  suggestion  is  far  beyond  materia  medica.  The 
faith  which  the  patient  has  in  the  physician  will  work 
wonders,  either  for  good  or  for  evil,  and  faith  was  the 
method  which  Christ  used  in  his  healing.  If  the  inquirer 
will  look  up  the  instances  where  the  Christ  healed  the  sick 
in  the  Bible,  he  will  find  that  there  was  always  a  question 
concerning  the  faith  of  the  one  seeking  healing.  To  each 
applicant  the  Christ  said,  "According  to  thy  faith,  be  it 
unto  you." 

That  skepticism  destroyed  even  His  power  is,  perhaps, 
most  evident  from  the  passage  where  we  are  told  that  He 
journeyed  to  His  native  city  and  found  that  a  prophet  is 
not  without  honor  save  in  his  own  country.  This  story  is 
told  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Matthew,  also  by  Mark, 
and  it  is  significant  that  the  last  verse  in  the  thirteenth 
chapter  of  Matthew  says  that  He  did  not  do  many  mighty 
works  because  of  their  unbelief.  Mark  tells  us  that  be- 
cause of  their  skepticism  He  was  only  able  to  heal  a  very  few 
people  by  laying  His  hands  upon  them. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  77 

The  open  mind  is  an  essential  requisite  to  all  investiga- 
tion and  skepticism  is  absolutely  fatal  to  the  attainment 
of  knowledge.  As  an  illustration,  we  may  mention  that  the 
writer  was  in  Columbus  a  few  years  ago  and  there  went  to  a 
lecture  by  Professor  Hyslop,  the  Secretary  of  the  Society 
for  Psychological  Research.  The  subject  of  the  lecture 
was  "New  Evidence  of  a  Future  Life."  The  writer  was 
astonished  to  find  that  Prof.  Hyslop  did  not  present  in  his 
lecture  one  single  point  which  had  not  been  brought  out  in 
the  last  twenty  years  in  the  reports  of  the  Society  to  which 
he  belongs.  But  the  solution  came  after  the  lecture,  when 
a  question  brought  out  the  fact  that  Prof.  Hyslop  did  not 
believe  in  anything  that  had  been  said  in  the  Society's  re- 
ports, lie  did  not  believe  in  the  results  obtained  by  anyone 
but  himself.  This  evidence  which  he  had  just  presented 
had  been  collected  by  him;  therefore  it  was  new  to  him 
and  he  expected  his  audience  to  take  his  word,  although  he 
himself  was  unwilling  to  take  the  word  of  anyone  else, 
and  as  an  illustration  of  how  skepticism  acts,  he  uncon- 
sciously gave  a  very  fine  example,  when  he  related  that,  go- 
ing to  a  medium  on  a  certain  day,  Eichard  Hodgson,  de- 
ceased, spoke  through  the  medium  and  Prof.  Hyslop  com- 
menced to  ask  questions  which,  though  quite  simple,  Mr. 
Hodgson  had  great  difficulty  in  answering.  Prof.  Hyslop 
at  last  impatiently  said,  "Why,  what  is  the  matter  with  you, 
Eichard;  when  you  were  alive  you  were  quick  enough; 
why  can't  you  answer  now?"  "Then,"  said  Prof.  Hyslop, 
came  the  answer,  quick  as  lightning,  "Oh,  every  time  I  get 
into  your  wretched  atmosphere  I  go  all  to  pieces."  Prof. 
Hyslop  could  not  understand  the  reason  why,  but  anyone 
who  has  seen  a  pupil  before  a  Board  of  Examiners  which 
has  made  up  its  mind  that  he  is  a  dunce  will  know  why, 
und  understand  that  it  was  Prof.  Hyslop's  critical  skeptical 


78  ROSICBUCIAX  PHILOSOPHY 

attitude  of  mind  which  caused  Richard  Hodgson's  great 
difficulty  in  communicating.  We  may,  therefore,  say  that 
we  believe  in  materia  medica  when  used  in  conjunction  with 
astrology  and  also  in  Christ's  method  of  healing,  which 
is  Faith  Cure,  and  in  the  power  of  suggestion  and  the  vari- 
ous other  systems  of  healing.  They  all  contain  some  truth, 
though  unfortunately  many  are  made  into  fads  and  carried 
to  extremes.  Then  they  lose  their  power  for  good  and  be- 
come menaces  to  those  who  might  otherwise  have  been  bene- 
fitted. 


QUESTION  Xo.  36. 

Since  suffering  is  the  result  of  our  own  actions,  do  you 
think  it  wrong  to  take  medicine  to  remove  pain  if  one  is 
not  hopelessly  ill  or  dying? 


Answer:  This  question  reveals  an  attitude  of  mind  that 
is  extremely  deplorable;  as  well  ask  if  it  is  right  to  try 
to  save  one's  self  if  drowning,  for  falling  in  the  water  is 
also  an  effect  of  some  self -generated  cause.  Certainly,  it 
is  our  duty  to  take  medicine  administered  by  a  properly 
qualified  person,  or  attempt  to  cure  the  ills  from  which  we 
suffer  in  any  other  way  possible  that  appeals  to  us.  We 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEES  79 

should  be  doing  decidedly  wrong  if  we  allowed  our  physical 
instrument  to  deteriorate  for  lack  of  proper  care  and  at- 
tention. It  is  the  most  valuable  tool  we  possess,  and  un- 
less we  use  it  circumspectly  and  care  for  it,  we  are 
amenable  to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  for  that  neglect. 

A  question  such  as  this  reveals  an  altogether  erroneous 
idea  of  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  It  is  our  duty  to  ^ry 
to  rise  above  conditions  instead  of  allowing  circumstances 
to  guide  our  lives.  There  is  a  beautiful  little  poem  which 
aptly  enunciates  this  idea : 

"One  ship  sails  east  and  another  sails  west 

With  the  self  same  winds  that  blow; 
;Tis  the  set  of  the  sail  and  not  the  gale 
Which  determines  the  way  they  go. 

"As  the  winds  of  the  sea  are  the  ways  of  Fate 

As  we  voyage  along  through  life, 
'Tis  the  act  of  the  soul  which  determines  the  goal 
And  not  the  calm  or  the  strife." 

If  we  endeavor  to  turn  the  sails  of  our  bark  of  life 
aright,  we  shall  always  be  able  to  modify  if  not  to  alto- 
gether change  conditions,  and  make  our  lives  what  we 
will  instead  of  sitting  supinely  waiting  for  the  clouds  to 
pass  by,  because  we  have  made  those  clouds  ourselves.  The 
very  fact  that  we  have  made  them  ought  to  be  an  inspira- 
tion to  give  us  the  courage  and  energy  to  unmake  them, 
or  push  them  away  as  quickly  as  possible. 


80  KOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  37. 

What  form  of  healing  do  you  advise,  physicians  or  prac- 
titioners, as  in  the  Christian  Science  belief? 


Answer:  That  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  sickness 
and  the  temperament  of  the  patient.  If  it  is  a  case  of  a 
broken  leg,  a  surgeon  is  obviously  the  one  to  call.  If  there 
is  an  internal  disorder  and  it  is  possible  to  get  a  broad 
minded  physician,  then  in  certain  cases  he  is  the  one  to 
get.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  mental  healer,  Christian 
Science  healer  or  anyone  else  who  is  spiritually  minded  can 
be  brought  in,  they  may  help  a  person  who  is  himself 
strong  in  faith,  for,  as  a  tuning  fork  which  is  of  certain 
pitch  will  respond  when  another  tuning  fork  of  the  same 
pitch  is  struck,  so  will  the  person  filled  with  faith  respond 
to  the  ministrations  of  these  last  named  ones.  But  where 
faith  in  their  methods  is  lacking  in  the  patient,  it  is  far 
better  to  send  for  a  regular  physician  in  whom  the  patient 
has  confidence,  for  health  or  sickness  depends  almost  alto- 
gether upon  the  state  of  the  mind,  and  in  the  conditions 
of  sickness  where  a  person  is  enfeebled,  he  becomes  hyper- 
sensitive and  should  not  be  thwarted  in  his  preferences. 
Besides,  whatever  good  there  is  in  any  system  of  healing, 
the  effects  upon  a  certain  person  will  be  beneficial  or  the 
reverse  in  exact  proportion  to  his  faith  in  its  healing 
power. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  81 

QUESTION  No.  38. 

What  is  your  opinion  in  regard  to  fasting  as  a  means  of 
curing  disease? 


Answer:  We  may  readily  conceive  that  there  are  more 
people  in  the  West  who  die  from  over  eating  than  from 
getting  too  little  food.  And  under  certain  conditions  fast- 
ing for  a  day  or  two  is  undoubtedly  beneficial,  but  just  as 
there  are  gourmands  and  gluttons,  so  there  are  also  others 
who  go  to  the  opposite  extreme  and  fast  to  excess.  There 
lies  a  great  danger.  The  better  way  is  to  eat  in  modera- 
tion and  to  eat  the  proper  kinds  of  food;  then  it  will  not 
be  necessary  to  fast  at  all. 

If  we  study  the  chemistry  of  food  we  shall  find  that 
certain  foods  have  properties  of  value  to  the  system  under 
certain  conditions  of  disorder,  and  taken  properly  food  is 
really  medicine.  All  the  citric  fruits,  for  instance,  are 
splendid  antiseptics.  They  cleanse  and  purify  the  alimen- 
tary canal.  Thus  they  prevent  disease.  All  the  cereals, 
particularly  rice,  are  anti-toxins;  they  will  kill  disease 
and  the  germs  of  putrefaction.  Thus,  by  knowing  these 
medicinal  properties  of  the  different  foods,  we  may  very 
readily  secure  a  supply  of  that  which  we  need  to  cure  our 
ordinary  ailments  b}r  food  instead  of  by  fasting. 


82  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  39. 

Do  you  consider  it  wrong  to  try  to  cure  a  bad  habit,  such 
as,  for  instance,  drunkenness,  by  hypnotism  ? 


Answer:  Most  decidedly  yes.  Looked  at  from  the 
standpoint  of  one  life,  such  methods  as  for  instance  those 
employed  by  the  healers  of  the  Immamiel  movement,  are 
undoubtedly  productive  of  an  immense  amount  of  good. 
The  patient  is  seated  in  a  chair,  put  into  a  sleep  and  there 
he  is  given  certain  so  called  "suggestions."  He  rises  and 
is  cured  of  his  bad  habit;  from  being  a  drunkard  he  be- 
comes a  respectable  citizen  who  cares  for  his  wife  and  fam- 
ily, and  upon  the  face  of  it  the  good  seems  to  be  un- 
deniable. 

But  looking  at  it  from  the  deeper  standpoint  of  the  oc- 
cultist, who  views  this  life  as  only  one  in  many,  and  look- 
ing at  it  from  the  effect  it  has  upon  the  invisible  vehicles 
of  man,  the  case  is  vastly  different.  When  a  man  is  put 
into  a  hypnotic  sleep,  the  hypnotist  makes  passes  over  him 
which  have  the  effect  of  expelling  the  ether  from  the  head 
of  his  dense  body  and  substituting  the  ether  of  the  hyp- 
notist. The  man  is  then  under  the  perfect  domination  of 
another;  he  has  no  free  will,  and,  therefore,  the  so  called 
" suggestions"  are  in  reality  commands  which  the  victim 
has  no  choice  but  to  obey.  Besides,  when  the  hypnotist 
withdraws  his  ether  and  wakens  the  victim  he  is  unable  to 
remove  all  the  ether  he  put  into  him.  To  use  a  simile, 
as  a  small  part  of  the  magnetism  infused  into  an  electric 
dynamo  before  it  can  be  started  for  the  first  time  is  left 
behind  and  remains  as  residual  magnetism  to  excite  the 
fields  of  the  dynamo  every  time  it  is  started  up,  so  also 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  83 

there  remains  a  small  part  of  the  ether  of  the  hypnotist's 
vital  body  in  the  medulla  oblongata  of  the  victim,  which 
is  a  club  the  hypnotist  holds  over  him  all  his  life,  and  it  is 
due  to.  this  fact  that  suggestions  to  be  carried  out  at  a 
period  subsequent  to  the  awakening  of  the  victim  are  in- 
variably followed. 

Thus  the  victim  of  a  hypnotic  healer  does  not  overcome 
the  bad  habit  by  his  own  strength,  but  is  as  much  chained 
in  that  respect  as  if  he  were  in  solitary  confinement,  and 
although  in  this  life  he  may  seem  to  be  a  better  citizen, 
when  he  returns  to  earth  he  will  have  the  same  weakness 
and  have  to  struggle  until  at  last  he  overcomes  it  him- 
self. 


QUESTION  No.  40. 

Are  there  any  methods  of  eradicating  the  calcareous 
ter  which   comes  into   our  bodies  by  wrong   methods  of 
diet  ? 


Answer:  The  question  shows  that  the  inquirer  is  awara 
that  our  bodies  are  gradually  hardening  from  childhood 
to  old  age,  on  account  of  the  chalky  substances  contained 
in  most  of  the  foods  we  usually  nourish  our  bodies  upon, 


84  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

This  calcareous  matter  is  primarily  deposited  in  the  walk 
of  the  arteries  and  veins,  causing  what  is  known  to  the 
medical  profession  as  arterio-sclerosis  or  hardening  of  the 
arteries.  The  arteries  of  a  little  child  are  extremely  soft 
and  elastic,  like  a  rubber  tube,  but  gradually  as  we  ad- 
vance through  childhood,  youth  and  on  toward  old  age,  the 
walls  of  the  arteries  become  harder  in  consequence  of  the 
deposits  of  chalk  left  by  the  passing  blood.  Thus  in  time 
they  may  become  as  stiff  and  unelastic  as  a  pipe  stem. 
There  is  a  condition  which  is  called  pipe-stem  artery.  The 
arteries  then  become  brittle  and  may  break,  causing  hemor- 
rhage and  death.  Therefore  it  is  said  truly  that  a  man 
is  as  old  as  his  arteries.  If  we  can  clear  the  arteries  and 
capillaries  of  this  earthy  matter,  we  may  greatly  prolong 
life  and  the  usefulness  of  our  body. 

From  the  occult  standpoint,  of  course,  it  is  no  matter 
whether  we  live  or  die,  as  the  saying  is,  for  death  to  us 
does  not  mean  annihilation  but  only  the  shifting  of  the 
consciousness  to  other  spheres;  nevertheless,  when  we  have 
brought  a  vehicle  through  the  useless  years  of  childhood, 
past  the  hot  years  of  youth,  and  have  come  to  the  time  of 
discretion  when  we  are  really  beginning  to  gain  experience, 
then  the  longer  we  can  prolong  the  time  of  experience  the 
more  we  may  gain.  For  that  reason  it  is  of  a  certain  value 
to  prolong  the  life  of  the  body. 

In  order  to  accomplish  that  result,  we  must  first  select 
the  foods  that  are  least  impregnated  with  the  choking 
substances  which  cause  the  induration  of  arteries  and 
capillaries.  These  may  be  briefly  stated  to  be  the  green 
vegetables  and  all  fruits.  Next,  it  is  of  importance  to  seek 
to  eradicate  the  choking  matter  which  we  have  already 
absorbed,  if  that  is  possible,  but  science  has  not  yet 
found  any  food  or  medicine  that  will  with  certainty  pro- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  85 

duce  that  effect.  Electric  baths  have  been  found  to  be  ex- 
ceedingly beneficial  but  not  entirely  satisfactory.  Butter- 
milk is  the  best  agent  for  eradicating  this  earthy  sub- 
stance, and  next  comes  grape  juice.  If  taken  continually 
and  in  generous  quantities,  these  substances  will  consid- 
erably ameliorate  the  hardened  condition  of  the  arteries. 


QUESTION  No.  41. 

Is  not  nature  guilty  of  frequent  physical  malformations 
•in  the  plant  and  animal  world  as  well  as  in  the  human  race, 
.and  can  there  be  a  perfectly  whole  and  sane  intelligence 
with  a  forceful  will  in  a  diseased  or  malformed  body? 


Answer:  We  would  ask,  what  do  you  mean  by  nature? 
Bacon  says  that  nature  and  God  differ  only  as  the  print 
and  the  seal.  Nature  is  the  visible  symbol  of  God,  and  we 
are  too  apt  to  think  of  nature  nowadays  in  a  materialistic 
sense.  Back  of  every  manifestation  in  nature  there  are 
forces,  not  blind  forces,  but  intelligences.  Perhaps  an 
illustration  will  enable  us  to  realize  our  relation  to  them. 

Supposing  we  have  materials  and  tools;  we  are  en- 
gaged in  making  a  table  and  a  dog  is  sitting  looking  at  us. 


86  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Then  the  dog,  a  being  of  a  lower  kingdom,  will  gradually 
see  us  planing  the  wood  and  putting  the  top  on  the  legs ; 
it  will  see  the  table  coming  into  existence  by  degrees;  it 
may  watch  the  process,  though  it  may  not  know  the  use 
of  the  table  and  may  not  understand  what  is  in  our  minds 
while  we  are  fashioning  the  table.  It  simply  beholds  a 
manifestation,  it  sees  us  working  and  views  the  results. 
Supposing  further,  for  the  sake  of  illustration,  the  dog 
could  see  the  materials  and  how  they  were  gradually  being 
shaped  into  a  table,  but  could  not  see  us  working  and 
putting  the  various  pieces  together  to  form  this  table; 
then  the  dog  would  be  in  about  the  same  relation  to  us 
as  we  are  to  the  nature  forces.  What  we  speak  of  as 
electricity,  as  magnetism,  as  expansion  in  steam,  etc.,  are 
intelligences  which  work  unseen  to  us  when  certain  condi- 
tions are  brought  about.  Nature  spirits  build  the  plants, 
form  the  crystals  of  the  rock,  and  with  numerous  other 
hierarchies  are  working  around  and  about  us  unseen,  but 
nevertheless  busy  in  making  that  which  we  call  nature. 

These  are  all  evolving  beings,  like  ourselves,  and  the 
very  fact  that  they  are  evolving  shows  that  they  are  im- 
perfect and  therefore  apt  to  make  mistakes  which  natur- 
ally result  in  malformations,  so  that  it  may  be  said  in  an- 
swer to  the  question  that  the  invisible  intelligences  which 
make  what  we  call  nature  are  guilty  of  frequent  mistakes 
as  well  as  we. 

As  to  the  second  part  of  the  question,  whether  there 
can  be  a  perfectly  whole  and  sane  intelligence  with  a  force- 
ful will  in  a  diseased  or  malformed  body,  we  may  say 
"yes,  undoubtedly,"  but  as  the  expression  of  that  intelli- 
gence is  dependent  upon  the  efficiency  of  its  instrument, 
it  may,  naturally,  be  hampered  by  the  physical  deformity, 
on  the  same  principle  that  no  matter  how  skilled  the  work- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEES  87 

man  is,  his  efficiency  depends  in  a  great  measure  upon 
the  condition  of  his  tools. 


QUESTION  No.  42. 

What  is  the  effect  of  vaccination  from  the  occult  point 
of  view? 


Answer:  Bacteriologists  have  discovered  that  many  dis- 
eases are  caused  by  microorganisms  which  invade  our  body, 
and  also  that  when  this  invading  army  begins  to  create  a 
disturbance  the  body  commences  to  manufacture  germs  of 
an  opposing  nature  or  a  substance  which  will  poison  the 
invaders.  It  is  then  a  question  of  which  are  the  strong- 
est, the  invaders  or  the  defenders.  If  the  defending  mi- 
crobes are  more  numerous  than  the  invaders  or  if  the 
poison  which  is  noxious  to  the  invaders  is  manufactured 
in  sufficient  quantities,  the  patient  recovers.  If  the  de- 
fenders are  vanquished  or  the  body  is  unable  to  manufac- 
ture a  sufficient  quantity  of  the  serum  necessary  to  poison 
the  invaders,  the  patient  succumbs  to  the  disease.  It  was 
further  discovered  that  when  a  certain  person  has  once 
successfully  recovered  from  a  specific  malady,  he  is  im- 
mune from  renewed  attacks  of  that  disease  for  the  reason 


88  ROSICKTJCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

that  he  has  in  his  body  the  serum  which  is  death  to  the 
germs  that  cause  the  disease  he  has  once  weathered. 
From  the  above  facts  certain  conclusions  were  drawn : 

(1)  If  a  healthy  person  is  inoculated  with  a  few  of  the 
germs  of  a  certain  disease  he  will  contract  that  disease  in 
a  mild  form.     He  will  then  be  able  to  develop  the  saving 
serum  and  thus  he  will  become  immune  to  that  disease  in 
the  future. 

That  is  the  philosophy  of  vaccination  as  a  means  of  pre- 
venting disease. 

(2)  When  a  person  has  contracted  a  disease  and  is  un- 
able  to  manufacture  a   sufficient  quantity  of  the  serum 
which  will  destroy  the  invading  microorganisms,  his  life 
may   be   saved   by   inoculation   with   the   serum   obtained 
from  another  who  has  become  immune. 

As  it  is  not  easy  to  get  such  antitoxins  or  cultures  from 
human  beings,  these  germ-cultures  and  poisons  have  been 
obtained  from  animals,  and  much  has  been  written  both 
for  and  against  the  use  of  such  methods  of  fighting  disease. 
With  these  we  are  not  here  concerned;  the  inquirer  asks 
for  the  occult  viewpoint,  which  goes  deeper  than  the  ques- 
tions at  issue,  as  seen  from  the  material  side  of  life.  There 
are  undoubtedly  cases  where  disease  has  been  prevented  by 
vaccination  and  cases  where  death  has  been  prevented  by 
the  use  of  antitoxin ;  there  are  also  cases  where  vaccination 
and  antitoxin  have  caused  the  fatality  they  were  designed 
to  prevent,  but  that  is  beside  the  question.  From  the 
occult  viewpoint  vaccination  and  the  use  of  antitoxin 
obtained  by  the  processes  in  use  in  bacteriological  institutes 
is  to  be  deplored.  These  methods  work  a  wrong  on  the 
helpless  animals  and  poison  the  human  body,  making  it 
difficult  for  the  Ego  to  use  its  instrument. 

If  we  study  the  chemistry  of '  our  food  we  shall  find 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  89 

that  nature  has  provided  all  necessary  medicine,  and  if 
we  eat  right  we  shall  be  immune  from  disease  without 
vaccination. 

When  in  normal  health  the  body  specializes  a  far  greater 
quantity  of  the  solar  energy  than  it  can  use.  The  surplus 
is  radiated  from  the  whole  surface  of  the  body  with  great 
force  and  prevents  the  entrance  of  microorganisms  which 
lack  the  strength  to  battle  against  this  outwelling  current, 
nay,  more !  on  the  same  principle  that  an  exhaust  fan 
will  gather  up  particles  of  dust  in  a  room  and  hurl  them 
outward  does  this  vital  fluid  cleanse  the  body  of  inimical 
matter,  dangerous  germs  included.  It  must  not  surprise 
us  that  this  force  is  intelligent  and -capable  of  selecting 
the  materials  which  should  be  eliminated,  leaving  the 
beneficial  and  useful.  Scientists  recognize  this  fact  of 
selective  osmosis.  They  know  that  while  a  sieve  will 
allow  any  particle  of  matter  to  pass  through  which  is 
smaller  than  the  mesh  of  the  sieve,  the  kidneys,  for  instance, 
will  keep  certain  fluids  of  use  to  the  body,  while  allowing 
waste  products  to  pass.  In  a  similar  manner  the  vital 
fluid  makes  a  distinction,  it  rids  the  body  of  the  poisons 
and  impurities  generated  inside  and  repels  similar  prod- 
ucts from  without. 

This  emanation  has  been  called  N^-rays,  or  Odic  fluid, 
by  scientists  who  have  discovered  it  by  means  of  chemical 
reagents  which  render  it  luminous.  During  the  process 
of  digestion  it  is  weakest,  for  then  an  extra  quantity  of 
the  solar  energy  is  required  for  use  inside  the  body  in  the 
metabolism  of  the  food;  it  is  the  cementing  factor  in 
assimilation.  The  heartier  we  have  eaten,  the  greater  is  the 
quantity  of  vital  fluid  expended  within  the  body  and  the 
weaker  the  eliminative  and  protective  outrushing  current. 
Consequently  we  are  in  the  greatest  danger  from  an  inva- 


90  KOSICRUC1AN  PHILOSOPHY 

sion  by  an  army  of  inimical  microorganisms  when  we  have 
gorged  ourselves. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  eat  sparingly  and  choose  the 
foods  which  are  most  easily  digestible,  the  diminution  of 
the  protective  vital  current  will  be  correspondingly  mini- 
mized and  our  immunity  from  disease  will  be  much  en- 
hanced without  the  necessity  of  poisoning  our  body  with 
vaccine. 


QUESTION  Xo.  43. 

If,  as  you  state,  the  Ego  dwells  in  the  blood,  is  not  then 
the  practice  of  blood  transfusion  from  a  healthy  to  a  dis- 
eased person  dangerous?  Does  it  affect  or  influence  the 
Egos  in  any  way,  and  if  so,  how  ? 


Answer:  Among  the  latest  discoveries  of  science  is 
haemolysis — the  fact  that  inoculation  of  blood  from  the 
veins  of  a  higher  animal  into  one  of  a  lower  species, 
destroys  the  blood  of  the  lower  animal  and  causes  its 
death.  Thus  the  blood  of  man  injected  into  the  veins 
of  any  animal  is  fatal.  But  from  man  to  man  it  is  found 
that  transfusion  may  take  place,  althought  at  times  there 
are  deleterious  effects. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  91 

.  In  olden  days  people  married  in  the  family;  it  was  then 
looked  upon  with  horror  if  one  should  "seek  after  strange 
flesh."  When  the  sons  of  God  married  the  daughters  of  men, 
that  is  to  say,  when  the  subjects  of  one  leader  married  out- 
side the  tribe,  there  was  great  trouble,  they  were  cast  off  by 
their  leader  and  destroyed,  for  at  that  time  certain  qual- 
ities that  we  now  possess  were  to  be  developed  in  humanity 
and  were  thus  implanted  in  the  common  blood  which  ran 
pure  in  the  family  or  small  tribe.  Later  on  when  mar- 
was  to  be  brought  down  into  more  material  conditions, 
international  marriages  were  commanded  and,  from  that 
time  on,  it  has  been  looked  upon  as  equally  horrible  if 
persons  within  the  same  family  united  in  marriage. 

The  old  Vikings  would  not  allow  anyone  to  marry  into 
their  family  unless  they  had  first  gone  through  the  cere- 
mony of  mixing  blood  to  see  if  the  transfusion  of  the 
blood  of  the  stranger  into  their  family  was  detrimental 
or  otherwise.  All  this  was  because  in  earlier  times  human- 
ity was  not  as  individualized  as  it  is  today.  They  were 
more  under  the  domination  of  the  race  spirit  or  family 
spirit,  which  dwelt  in  their  blood,  as  the  group  spirit  of 
animals  does  in  the  blood  of  animals.  Later  the  inter- 
national marriages  were  given  to  free  humanity  from  that 
yoke  and  make  every  separate  Ego  sole  master  of  its  own 
body  without  outside  interference. 

Science  has  lately  found  that  the  blood  of  different 
people  has  different  crystals,  so  that  it  is  possible  now  to 
tell  the  blood  of  a  negro  from  the  blood  of  a  white  man; 
but  there  will  come  a  day  when  they  will  know  a  still 
greater  difference,  for  just  as  there  is  a  difference  in  the 
crystals  formed  by  the  different  races,  so  there  is  also  a 
difference  in  the  crystals  formed  by  each  individual  man. 
The  thumb-marks  of  no  two  people  are  alike,  and  it  will  be 


92  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

found  in  time  that  the  blood  of  each  human  being  is  dif- 
ferent from  the  blood  of  every  other  individual.  This 
difference  is  already  evident  to  the  occult  investigator,  and 
it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  science  will  make 
the  discovery,  for  the-distinguishing  features  are  becom- 
ing more  marked  as  the  human  being  grows  less  and  less 
dependent,  more  and  more  self-sufficient. 

This  change  in  the  blood  is  most  important  and  in 
time,  when  it  lias  become  more  marked,  it  will  be  produc- 
tive of  most  far-reaching  consequences.  It  is  said  that 
"nature  geometrizes,"  and  nature  is  but  the  visible  sym- 
bol of  the  invisible  God  whose  offspring  and  images  we  are. 
Being  made  in  His  likeness,  we  are  also  beginning  to 
geometrizc,  and  naturally  we  are  starting  on  the  sub- 
stance where  we,  the  human  spirits,  the  Egos,  have  the 
greatest  power,  namely,  in  OUT  blood. 

When  the  blood  courses  through  the  arteries,  which  are 
deep  in  the  body,  it  is  a  gas;  but  loss  of  heat  nearer  the 
surface  of  the  body  causes  it  to  partially  condense,  and  in 
that  substance  the  Ego  is  learning  to  form  mineral  crys- 
tals. In  the  Jupiter  Period  we  shall  learn  to  invest  them 
with  a  low  form  of  vitality  and  set  them  out  from  ourselves 
as  plant-like  structures.  In  the  Venus  Period  we  shall 
be  able  to  infuse  desire  into  them  and  make  them  like 
animals.  Finally,  in  the  Vulcan  Period,  we  shall  give 
them  a  mind  and  rule  over  them  as  race  spirits. 

At  the  present  time  we  are  at  the  very  beginning  of  this 
individualization  of  our  blood.  Therefore  it  is  possible 
at  present  to  transfuse  blood  from  one  human  being  to 
another,  but  the  day  is  near  at  hand  when  that  will  be 
impossible.  The  blood  of  a  white  man  will  kill  all  who 
stand  lower,  and  the  blood  of  an  advanced  person  will  poi- 
son the  less  cultured.  The  child  at  present  receives  its  sup- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  93 

ply  of  blood  from  the  parents,  stored  in  the  thymus  gland, 
for  the  years  of  childhood.  But  the  time  will  come  when 
the  Ego  will  be  too  far  individualized  to  function  in. 
blood  not  generated  by  itself.  Then  the  present  mode  of 
generation  will  have  to  be  superseded  by  another  whereby 
the  Ego  may  create  its  own  vehicle  without  the  help  of 
parents. 


QUESTION  No.  44. 

What  are  the  causes  of  insanity? 


Answer:  To  answer  that  question  would  require  vol- 
umes, but  we  may  say  that  from  the  occultist's  standpoint 
there  are  four  classes  of  insanity. 

Insanity  is  always  caused  by  a  break  in  the  chain  of 
vehicles  between  the  Ego  and  the  physical  body.  This 
break  may  occur  between  the  brain  centers  and  the  vital 
body,  or  it  may  be  between  the  vital  and  desire  body,  be- 
tween the  desire  body  and  the  mind,  or  between  the  mind 
and  the  Ego.  The  rupture  may  be  complete  or  only  partial. 

When  the  break  is  between  the  brain  centers  and  the 
vital  body,  or  between  that  and  the  desire  body,  we  have 
the  idiots.  When  the  break  is  between  the  desire  body  and 


94  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  mind,  the  violent  and  impulsive  desire  body  rules  and 
we  have  the  raving  maniac.  When  the  break  is  between 
the  Ego  and  the  mind,  the  mind  is  the  ruler  over  the 
other  vehicles  and  we  have  the  cunning  maniac,  who 
may  deceive  his  keeper  into  believing  that  he  is  perfectly 
harmless  until  he  has  hatched  some  diabolical,  cunning 
scheme.  Then  he  may  suddenly  show  his  deranged  men- 
tality and  cause  a  dreadful  catastrophe. 

There  is  one  cause  of  insanity  that  it  may  be  well  to 
explain,  as  it  is  sometimes  possible  to  avoid  it.  When 
the  Ego  is  returning  from  the  invisible  world  toward  re- 
embodiment,  it  is  shown  the  various  incarnations  available. 
It  sees  the  coming  life  in  its  great  and  general  events, 
much  as  a  moving  picture  passing  before  its  vision.  Then 
it  is  given  the  choice,  usually,  of  several  lives.  It  sees 
at  that  time  the  lessons  it  has  to  learn,  the  fate  it  has 
generated  for  itself  in  past  lives,  and  what  part  of  that 
fate  it  will  have  to  liquidate  in  each  of  the  embodiments 
offered.  Then  it  makes  its  choice  and  is  guided  by  the 
agents  of  the  Recording  Angels  to  the  country  and  family 
where  it  is  to  live  its  coming  life. 

This  panoramic  view  is  seen  in  the  Third  Heaven 
where  the  Ego  is  naked  and  feels  spiritually  above  sordid 
material  considerations.  It  is  much  wiser  then  than  it 
appears  here  on  earth,  where  it  is  blinded  by  the  flesh  to  an 
inconceivable  extent.  Later,  when  conception  has  taken 
place  and  the  Ego  draws  into  the  womb  of  its  mother,  on 
about  the  eighteenth  day  after  that  event,  it  comes  in  con- 
tact with  the  etheric  mold  of  its  new  physical  body  which 
has  been  made  by  the  Recording  Angels  to  give  the  brain 
formation  that  will  impress  upon  the  Ego  the  tendencies 
necessary  to  work  out  its  destiny. 

There  the  Ego  sees  again  the  pictures  of  its  coming  life, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  95 

as  the  drowning  man  perceives  the  pictures  of  his  past  life 
— in  a  flash.  At  that  time  the  Ego  is  already  partially 
blind  to  its  spiritual  nature,  so  that  if  the  coming  life 
seems  to  be  a  hard  one,  it  will  oftentimes  shrink  from 
entering  the  womb  and  making  the  proper  brain  connec- 
tions. It  may  endeavor  to  draw  itself  out  quickly  and 
then,  instead  of  being  concentric  as  the  vital  and  the  dense 
bodies  should  be,  the  vital  body  formed  of  ether  may  be 
drawn  partially  above  the  head  of  the  dense  body.  In 
that  case  the  connection  between  the  sense  centers  of  the 
vital  body  and  the  dense  body  are  disrupted  and  the  result 
is  congenital  idiocy,  epilepsy,  St.  Vitus  dance,  and  similar 
nervous  disorders. 

The  inharmonious  relation  between  the  parents  which 
sometimes  exists  is  often  the  last  straw  that  makes  an 
Ego  feel  that  it  cannot  enter  such  an  environment.  There- 
fore, it  cannot  be  too  seriously  impressed  upon  prospective 
parents  that  during  the  gestatory  period  it  is  of  the  utn.  >st 
importance  that  every  thing  should  be  done  to  keep  the 
mother  in  a  condition  of  contentment  and  harmony.  For 
it  is  a  very  hard  task  for  the  Ego  to  go  through  the  womb ; 
it  taxes  all  its  sensibilities  to  the  very  utmost,  and  inhar- 
monious conditions  in  the  home  it  is  entering  are,  of 
course,  an  added  source  of  discomfort,  which  may  result  in 
the  above  named  dreadful  state  of  affairs. 


96  SOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  45. 

When  an  insane  person  dies,  will  lie  still  be  insane  in  the 
Desire  World? 


Answer:  That  depends  upon  where  the  break  is,  for 
insanity  is  a  rupture  in  the  vehicles  between  the  Ego  and 
the  physical  body,  and  this  derangement  may  occur  between 
the  Ego  and  the  mind,  between  the  mind  and  the  desire 
body,  or  between  the  desire  body  and  the  vital  body,  and 
also  between  the  latter  and  the  dense  body.  If  the  break 
is  between  the  dense  and  the  vital  body  or  between  that  and 
the  desire  body,  the  Ego  will  be  perfectly  sane  in  the 
Desire  World  immediately  after  death,  because  it  has  then 
discarded  the  two  vehicles  which  were  afflicted. 

Where  the  break  occurs  between  the  desire  body  and 
the  mind,  the  desire  body  is,  as  a  matter  of  course,  still 
rampant,  and  often  causes  the  Ego  much  trouble  during 
its  existence  in  the  Desire  World;  for  the  Ego,  of  course, 
is  at  no  time  insane.  What  appears  as  insanity  arises 
from  the  fact  that  the  Ego  has  no  control  over  its  vehicles ; 
the  worst  of  all,  obviously,  is  where  the  mind  itself  has 
become  affected  and  the  Ego  is  tied  to  the  personality  for 
a  long  time  until  these  vehicles  are  worn  away. 


SECTION  II 

Questions  dealing  with 

LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


1st  Cosimc  Pl&ne 
Tofc'bW 


Cosmic  Planer 


Tth  Cosmic  Plane  include  5  all 

ii  line,   the   Sever?  worlds  b««n«j 
Subdivisions    o}  it. 


World  oV  VW« 


UJorldoj-  Divine 


"World  o\ 


(*>"£> h*  "UJorldof 


Phvt-'.c&l  UWld 


QUESTION  No.  46. 

What  is  the  use  of  knowing  about  the  after-death  state, 
what  happens  in  the  invisible  world,  and  all  these  things? 
Is  it  not  far  better  to  take  one  world  at  a  time?  Sufficient 
unto  the  day  is  the  trouble  thereof.  Why  borrow  more? 


Answer:  If  we  knew  beyond  a  doubt  that  at  some  time 
we  should  be  forced  to  leave  our  country  and  go  to  another 
place  to  live  for  a  great  many  years  before  we  would  be 
allowed  to  return,  would  it  not  be  a  good  policy  for  us 
to  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  language,  the  customs,  and 
the  laws  of  that  country?  Thus  equipped  we  would  not 
feel  so  strange,  and  we  would  be  able  to  take  advantage 
of  whatever  opportunities  for  growth  and  study  we  should 
find  there;  we  would  not  be  apt  to  run  contrary  to  its  laws 
and  get  into  trouble  in  consequence  of  our  ignorance,  and 
in  many  similar  ways  it  would  be  to  our  advantage  to  know 
about  that  country. 

The  foregoing  illustrates  aptly  our  position  with  regard 
to  the  Invisible  Worlds.  After  death  we  shall  find  our- 
selves there,  and  if  we  are  able  now  to  obtain  information 
concerning  the  conditions  there,  it  will  surely  benefit  us 
greatly.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  advantage  that 
knowledge  will  take  away  from  us  the  fear  of  death,  because 
we  never  fear  that  which  we  know.  In  the  second  place, 
by  knowing  about  Purgatory  and  the  First  Heaven,  and 
by  knowing  about  the  evening  exercise  where  we  review  the 

99 


100  ROSICRTJCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

happenings  of  the  day  in  reverse  order,  we  may  live  our 
Purgatory  here  and  now  in  small  doses,  obtaining  the  for- 
giveness of  sins  instead  of  waiting  to  expiate  our  evil  deeds ; 
and  if  we  take  advantage  of  our  knowledge  we  shall  be  liv- 
ing in  an  attitude  such  as  we  would  not  attain  before 
entering  the  future  lives,  by  assimilating  daily  the  good 
that  we  have  done  and  expurgating  the  evil.  Thus  we 
shall  be  able  to  go  soaring  through  Purgatory  and  the 
First  Heaven  immediately  after  death. 

By  knowing  what  we  are  expected  to  accomplish  in  the 
Second  Heaven,  we  can  more  intelligently  apply  ourselves 
to  the  work  there;  we  gain  greater  consciousness  of  that 
realm  by  familiarizing  ourselves  with  it  daily.  Thus  in 
various  ways  we  shall  be  fitting  ourselves  to  become  invis- 
ible helpers,  to  live  consciously  all  the  time  and  shorten 
our  evolution  by  millions  of  years. 


QUESTION  Xo.  47. 

Is  there  any  limit  of  time  set  to  the  earth  life  before  we 
are  born? 


Answer:  Yes,  at  the  time  when  the  Ego  is  coming  to 
rebirth,  it  forms  the  creative  archetype  of  its  physical  form 
in  the  Second  Heaven  with  the  help  of  the  Creative  Hier- 


QUESTIONS  AND  AX3YvTE2S  101 

archies.  That  archetype  is  a  singing,  vibrating  thing, 
which  is  set  into  vibration  by  the  Ego  with  a  certain  forc«i 
commensurate  with  the  length  of  the  life  to  be  lived  upon 
earth,  and  until  that  archetype  ceases  to  vibrate  the  form 
which  is  built  of  the  chemical  constituents  of  the  earth 
will  continue  to  live. 

The  law  of  cause  and  effect,  however,  is  the  arbiter  of 
the  way  the  life  is  to  be  lived,  and  certain  opportunities 
for  spiritual  growrth  are  set  before  the  Ego  at  various 
points  in  its  earth  life.  If  these  opportunities  are  made 
use  of,  the  life  will  continue  along  the  straight  path,  but 
if  not,  it  diverges,  as  we  might  say,  into  a  blind  alley  where 
the  life  then  is  terminated  by  the  creative  hierarchies,  which 
destroy  the  archetype  in  the  Heaven  World.  Thus  we  may 
say  that  the  ultimate  length  of  an  earth  life  is  determined 
before  we  are  born  physically,  but  the  life  may  be  shortened 
if  we  neglect  certain  opportunities.  There  is  also  the  pos- 
sibility in  the  case  of  a  few,  where  the  life  has  been  thor- 
oughly lived,  where  it  has  been  very  full,  and  where  the 
person  has  endeavored  in  all  cases  to  live  up  to  his  oppor- 
tunities, that  more  life  may  be  infused  into  the  archetype 
than  had  been  done  in  the  first  place,  and  so  the  life 
may  be  prolonged,  but  as  said,  that  is  only  in  exceptional 
-cases. 


102  BOSICKUCIAX  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  48. 

7s  it  possible  to  shorten  the  time  between  death  and  a 
new  birth,  so  as  to  hasten  one's  evolution,  and,  if  so,  how? 


Answer:  Yes,  it  is  possible  for  everyone  who  will  take 
the  pains  to  review  this  life  every  day,  in  the  reverse  order, 
from  evening  until  morning,  judging  himself  for  the 
things  he  has  done  amiss,  promising  himself  to  rectify 
his  mistakes  and  doing  it  to  the  best  of  his  endeavor. 
When  he  does  that  he  will  eradicate  the  sins  he  has  com- 
mitted from  his  life  and  he  will  steadily  become  a  very 
much  better  man  or  woman  than  those  who  do  not  per- 
form this  simple  exercise.  Thus  the  sins  which  would 
otherwise  be  expurgated  in  Purgatory  have  been  already 
dealt  with  in  life  and  so  the  Purgatorial  existence  will  be 
materially  shortened.  When  at  the  time  of  the  evening 
exercise,  the  man  reviews  the  good  he  has  done  and  prom- 
ises himself  to  endeavor  to  do  even  better  in  the  future 
he  is  also  assimilating  the  good  he  has  done  each  day,  and 
will  therefore  make  enormous  strides  in  soul  growth  so 
that  he  will  also  obviate  the  necessity  for  life  in  the  First 
Heaven.  Such  a  man  will  then  be  definitely  treading  the 
path  of  initiation;  he  is  then  in  reality  outside  the  ordi- 
nary laws  which  govern  mankind,  for  he  is  a  helper  in 
evolution  and  will,  therefore,  be  given  the  opportunity  to 
return  to  earth  in  that  capacity  much  sooner  than  would 
otherwise  be  the  case. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  103 

QUESTION  No.  49. 

Are  there  any  seasons  and  times,  ages  and  epochs,  in  the 
other  world? 


Answer:  Xo.  We  might  say  that  there  it  is  all  one  long 
day.  There  is  no  time,  for  that  which  makes  time  here  is 
the  rotation  of  the  earth  upon  its  axis  and  its  orbital 
revolution  around  the  sun.  These  motions  make  day  and 
night,  summer  and  winter,  heat  and  cold,  etc.,  because 
the  earth's  opaque  and  solid  composition  renders  it  imper- 
vious to  the  rays  of  light  and  heat  emitted  by  the  sun,  so 
that  one-half  of  the  earth  is  always  cold  and  dark.  But 
in  that  other  world  nothing  is  opaque  nor  solid,  hence, 
there  is  neither  heat  nor  cold,  there  is  neither  summer  nor 
winter,  there  is  no  light,  there  is  no  night,  but  it  is  one 
long  bright  day. 

Therefore,  we  often  find  that  those  who  have  passed 
out  by  death,  while  fully  remembering  their  past  earth 
life,  will  have  no  sense  of  time  since  passing  out,  and 
may  sometimes  ask  the  question  as  to  the  length  of  time 
which  has  elapsed  since  that  event. 

There  is  only  one  method  there  of  gauging  time,  and  this 
is  used  by  the  trained  clairvoyant  in  fixing  events  when 
he  is  reading  in  the  memory  of  nature,  namely,  by  astrol- 
ogy, by  noting  the  positions  of  the  stars.  Of  course,  if  the 
event  he  is  looking  for  is  something  which  happened  in  his- 
torical times,  he  may  readily  fix  the  year  of  the  occurrence 
by  noting  some  historical  event  which  happened  at  the  same 
time,  but  where  he  has  to  go  back  for  many  thousands  of 
years,  as,  for  instance,  when  he  wishes  to  determine  the 
time  of  the  Atlantean  floods,  he  uses  particularly  the 


104:  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

precession  of  the  equinoxes,  which  is  the  motion  of  the  sun 
backward  through  the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  a  motion 
that  requires  about  twenty-six  thousand  years  to  bring  the 
sun  once  around  the  circle.  He  may  then  read  back  to 
the  times  of  the  Atlantean  floods,  counting  how  many  of 
such  periods  of  twenty-six  thousand  years  elapsed  between 
the  first  flood  and  the  second,  the  second  and  the  third, 
and  then  the  years  from  then  to  our  present  time.  If  he 
is  ignorant  of  the  stellar  science,  he  cannot  do  that,  so 
that  is  one  more  reason  why  the  student  of  occultism  should 
familiarize  himself  with  astronomy. 


QUESTION  No.  50. 

Does  a  person  who  lias  been  buried  alive  become  conscious 
of  his  condition?  And  how  does  the  spirit  get  back  to  the 
body  when  it  lays  in  the  grave  ? 


Answer:  It  is  evident  from  the  changed  position  of 
corpses  in  coffins  that  sometimes  when  a  body  has  been 
buried  before  tlie  spirit  had  definitely  left  it,  that  spirit  has 
returned  to  the  body  and  moved  that  body  about  in  ago- 
nizing attempts  to  obtain  the  necessary  air.  And,  of  course, 
that  would  show  that  consciousness  had  been  regained  in 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  105 

the  body.  The  spirit,  of  course,  is  not  at  all  hindered  by 
the  solid  nature  of  the  earth  and  the  coffin  from  coming 
and  going,  a  spirit  passes  just  as  easily  through  a  wall  or 
other  opaque  or  dense  obstacle  as  we  pass  through  the  air. 


QUESTION  No.   51. 
Why  do  children  die? 


Answer:  There  are  many  causes  for  the  death  of  chil- 
dren. We  will  give  a  few  of  the  principal  ones.  In  the 
first  place,  when  an  Ego  returns  to  earth  life,  it  is  drawn 
to  a  certain  family  because  it  can  there  get  the  environ- 
ment which  is  calculated  to  further  its  progress,  and  where 
it  may  liquidate  a  certain  amount  of  the  fate  generated  by 
itself  in  previous  existences.  Then  when  parents  make 
such  radical  changes  in  their  lives  that  the  Ego  would 
not  be  able  to  get  that  experience,  or  liquidate  that  fate, 
the  Ego  is  usually  withdrawn  and  sent  to  another  place 
where  it  may  get  the  right  conditions  for  its  growth  at  that 
time.  Or  it  may  be  withdrawn  for  a  few  years  and  reborn 
in  the  same  family  when  it  is  seen  that  the  conditions  can 
be  obtained  there  at  that  late  time.  But  there  is  a  cause 
that  is  responsible  for  infant  mortality  which  lies  much 


106  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

farther  back,  namely,  in"  previous  lives,  and  to  understand 
this  cause  it  is  necessary  to  know  something  about  what 
takes  place  at  death  and  immediately  after. 
-  When  a  spirit  is  passing  out  of  the  body,  it  takes  with  it 
the  desire  body,  the  mind  and  the  vital  body,  and  the  vital 
body  is  at  that  time  the  storehouse  for  the  pictures  of  the 
past  life.  These  are  then  etched  into  the  desire  body  dur- 
ing the  three  and  one-half  days  immeditely  following 
death.  Then  the  desire  body  becomes  the  arbiter  of  man's 
destiny  in  Purgatory  and  the  First  Heaven.  The  pains 
caused  by  expurgation  of  evil  and  the  joy  caused  by  the 
contemplation  of  the  good  in  life  are  carried  over  to  the 
next  life  as  conscience  to  deter  man  from  perpetuating  the 
mistakes  of  past  lives  and  ta  entice  him  to  do  that  which 
caused  him  joy  in  the  former  life  more  abundantly. 

When  those  next  of  kin  to  a  dying  person  who  are 
present  in  the  death  chamber  burst  into  hysterical  lamenta- 
tions at  the  time  the  spirit  passes  out,  and  keep  that  up 
for  the  next  few  days,  the  spirit  which  is  at  that  time 
in  exceedingly  close  touch  with  the  Physical  World  will  be 
much  moved  by  the  grief  of  the  dear  ones,  and  will  not 
be. able  to  focus  its  attention  closely  upon  the  contempla- 
tion of  its  past  life,  and  thus  the  etching  made  in  the 
desire  body  will  not  be  as  deep  as  it  would  if  the  passing 
spirit  were  left  in  peace  and  undisturbed.  Consequently 
the  sufferings  in  Purgatory  will  not  be  as  keen  nor  will 
the  pleasures  in  the  First  Heaven  be  as  great  as  otherwise 
and  therefore,  when  the  Ego  returns  to  earth  life,  it  will 
have  lost  a  certain  part  of  the  experience  from  the  previous 
life.  That  is  to  say,  the  voice  of  conscience  will  not  speak 
with  the  same  emphasis  as  would  have  been  the  case  had 
the.  Ego  been  left  undisturbed  by  lamentations. 
.In  order  to  compensate  for  this  lack,  the  Ego  is  then 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  107 

usually  brought  to  birth  among  the  same  friends  who 
lamented  over  it,  and  it  is  then  taken  away  from  them 
while  yet  in  the  years  of  childhood.  Then  it  enters  the 
Desire  World,  but,  of  course,  a  little  child  has  not  com- 
mitted any  sins  that  need  to  be  expurgated  and  so  its  desire 
body  and  mind  remain  intact;  it  then  goes  directly  into  the 
First  Heaven  to  wait  until  a  new  embodiment  offers,  bufc 
this  waiting  time  is  used  to  school  it  directly  in  the  effect 
of  the  different  emotions,  both  good  and  evil.  And  often  a 
relative  meets  it  and  takes  it  in  charge,  having  the  task  of 
teaching  it  that  which  it  had  lost  through  the  lamentation 
that  person  indulged  in,  or  else  it  is  taught  by  others.  At 
any  rate,  the  loss  is  more  than  made  up,  so  that  when  the 
child  returns  to  the  second  birth  it  will  have  as  full  a^ 
moral  growth  as  it  would  have  had  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances had  there  been  no  lamentation  at  the  time  when  it 
passed  out. 


QUESTION  No.  52. 

What  is  the  cause  of  the  vast  number  of  deaths  which 
occur  in  infancy  and  childhood? 


Answer:    When  the  man  passes  out  at  death,  he  takes 
with  him  the  mind,  desire  body,  and  vital  body,  the  latter 


108  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

being  the  storehouse  of  the  pictures  of  his  past  life.  And 
during  the  three  and  one-half  days  following  death  these 
pictures  are  etched  into  the  desire  body  to  form  the  basis 
of  the  man's  life  in  Purgatory  and  the  First  Heaven  where 
the  evil  is  expurgated  and  the  good  assimilated.  The  ex- 
perience of  the  life  itself  is  forgotten,  as  we  have  for- 
gotten the  process  of  learning  to  write,  but  have  retained 
the  faculty.  So  the  cumulative  extract  of  all  his  experi- 
ences, both  during  past  earth  lives  and  past  existencies  in 
Purgatory  and  the  various  Heavens,  are  retained  by  the 
man  and  form  his  stock  in  trade  in  the  next  birth.  The 
pains  he  has  sustained  speak  to  him  as  the  voice  of 
conscience,  the  good  he  has  done  gives  him  a  more  and 
more  altruistic  character. 

Now,  when  the  three  and  a  half  days  immediately  fol- 
lowing death  are  spent  by  the  man  under  conditions  of 
peace  and  quiet,  he  is  able  to  concentrate  much  more  upon 
the  etching  of  his  past  life  and  the  imprint  upon  the 
desire  body  will  be  deeper  than  if  he  is  disturbed  by  the 
hysterical  lamentations  of  his  relatives  or  from  other 
cause?.  And  he  will  then  experience  a  much,  keener  feeling 
for  either  good  or  bad  in  Purgatory  and  in  the  First 
Heaven,  and  in  after  lives  that  keen  feeling  will  speak 
to  him  with  no  unmistakable  voice;  but»where  the  lamen- 
tations of  relatives  take  away  his  attention  or  where  a 
man  passes  out  by  an  accident,  perhaps  in  a  crowded  street, 
in  a  train  wreck,  theater  fire,  or  under  other  harrowing 
circumstances,  there  will,  of  course,  be  no  opportunity  for 
him  to  properly  concentrate:  neither  can  he  concentrate 
upon  a  battle  field  if  he  is  slain  there,  and  yet  it  would  not 
be  just  that  he  should  lose  the  experiences  of  his  life  on 
account  of  passing  out  in  such  an  untoward  manner,  so 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect  provides  a  compensation. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  1Q9 

We  usually  think  that  when  a  child  is  born  it  is  born 
and  that  is  the  end  of  it;  but  as  during  the  period  of 
gestation  the  dense  body  is  shielded  from  the  impact  of 
the  outside  world  by  being  placed  within  the  protecting 
womb  of  the  mother  until  it  has  arrived  at  sufficient  ma- 
turity to  meet  the  outside  conditions,  so  are  also  the  vital 
body,  desire  body  and  mind  in  a  state  of  gestation  and 
are  born  at  later  periods  because  they  have  not  had  as 
long  an  evolution  behind  them  as  the  dense  body  and, 
therefore,  it  takes  a  longer  time  for  them  to  arrive  at  a 
sufficient  state  of  maturity  to  become  individualized.  The 
vital  body  is  born  at  the  seventh  year,  when  the  period 
of  excessive  growth  marks  its  advent.  The  desire  body 
is  born  at  the  time  of  puberty,  the  fourteenth  year,  and 
the  mind  is  born  at  twenty-one,  when  the  child  is  said  to 
have  become  a  man  or  woman — to  have  reached  majority. 

That  which  has  not  been  quickened  cannot  die,  and 
so  when  a  child  dies  before  the  birth  of  the  desire  body 
it  passes  out  into  the  invisible  world  in  the  First  Heaven. 
It  cannot  ascend  into  the  Second  and  Third  Heaven  be- 
cause the  mind  and  desire  body  are  not  born  and  wil) 
not  die,  so  it  simply  waits  in  the  First  Heaven  until 
a  new  opportunity  for  embodiment  offers,  and  where  it 
has  died  in  its  previous  life  under  the  before-mentioned 
harrowing  circumstances,  by  accident  or  upon  the  battle 
field  or  where  the  lamentations  of  relatives  rendered  it 
impossible  for  it  to  gain  as  deep  an  impression  of  the 
evil  committed  and  the  good  accomplished  as  would  have 
been  the  case  had  it  died  in  peace,  it  is  instructed  when  it 
has  died  in  the  next  life  as  a  child  in  the  effects  of  pas- 
sions and  desires  so  that  it  learns  the  lessons  then  which 
it  should  have  learned  in  the  Purgatorial  life  had  it  re- 
mained undisturbed.  It  is  then  reborn  with  the  proper 


HO  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

development  of   conscience   so   that  it   may   continue   its 
evolution. 

As  in  the  past  man  has  been  exceedingly  warlike  and 
not  at  all  careful  of  the  relatives  who  passed  out  at  death 
because  of  his  ignorance,  holding  wakes  over  those  who 
died  in  bed,  which  were  few,  perhaps,  compared  to  those 
who  died  on  the  battle  field,  there  must  necessarily  on  that 
account  be  an  enormous  amount  of  infant  mortality,  but 
as  humuanity  arrives  at  a  better  understanding  and  realizes 
that  we  are  never  so  much  our  brother's  keeper  as  when 
he  is  passing  out  of  this  life  and  that  we  can  help  him 
enormously  by  being  quiet  and  prayerful,  so  also  will 
infant  mortality  cease  to  exist  on  such  a  large  scale  as  at 
present. 


QUESTION  No.  53. 

Does  the  cremation  of  the  dense  body  after  death  affect 
the  spirit  in  any  way? 


Answer:  During  life  and  in  the  waking  state  of  con- 
sciousness, the  vehicles  of  the  Ego  are  all  together  and  con- 
centric, but  at  death  the  Ego,  clothed  in  the  mind  and 
desire  body,  withdraws  from  the  dense  body,  and  as  the 
vital  functions  are  at  an  end,  the  vital  body  also  is  taken 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  HI 

out  of  the  dense  body,  leaving  it  inanimate  upon  the  bed. 
One  little  atom  in  the  heart  is  taken  out  and  the  rest  of 
the  body  disintegrates  in  due  course.  But  at  that  time 
there  is  an  extremely  important  process  going  on,  and 
those  who  attend  the  passing  spirit  in  the  death  chamber 
should  be  very  careful  that  the  utmost  quiet  reigns  there 
and  in  the  whole  house,  for  the  pictures  of  the  whole 
past  life  which  have  been  stored  in  the  vital  body  are  pass- 
ing before  the  eye  of  the  spirit  in  a  slow  and  orderly  pro- 
gression, in  reverse  order,  from  death  and  back  to  birth. 
This  panorama  of  the  past  life  lasts  from  a  few  hours  to 
three  and  one-half  days.  The  time  is  dependent  upon 
the  strength  of  the  vital  body  which  determines  how  long 
a  man  could  keep  awake  under  the  most  severe  stress. 
Some  persons  can  work  for  fifty,  sixty  and  seventy  hours 
before  they  fall  down  exhausted,  while  others  are  capable  of 
keeping  awake  only  a  few  hours.  The  reason  why  it  is 
important  that  there  should  be  quiet  in  the  house  of  death 
during  the  three  and  one-half  days  immediately  following 
death  is  this:  During  that  time  the  panorama  of  the  past 
life  is  being  etched  upon  the  desire  body  which  will  be  the 
man's  vehicle  while  he  stays  in  Purgatory  and  the  First 
Heaven,  where  he  is  reaping  the  good  or  ill  that  he  has 
sown,  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body. 

Now,  where  the  life  has  been  full  of  events  and  the 
man's  vital  body  is  strong,  a  longer  time  will  be  given 
to  this  etching  than  under  conditions  where  the  vital  body 
is  weak,  but  during  all  that  time  the  dense  body  is  con- 
nected with  the  higher  vehicles  by  the  silver  cord  and  any 
hurt  to  the  dense  body  is  felt  in  a  measure  by  the  spiri-t. 
So  that  embalming,  post  mortem  examinations  and  cre- 
mation are  all  felt.  Therefore,  .these  should  be  avoided 
during  the  first  three  and  one-half  days  after  the  time 


EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  death,  for  when  the  panorama  has  been  fully  etched 
into  the  desire  body,  then  the  silver  cord  is  broken,  the 
vital  body  gravitates  back  to  the  dense  body  and  there  is 
no  more  connection  with  the  spirit,  which  is  then  free  to 
go  on  with  its  higher  life. 

When  the  body  is  buried,  the  vital  body  disintegrates 
slowly  at  the  same  time  as  the  dense  body,  so  that  when, 
for  instance,  an  arm  has  decayed  in  the  grave,  the  etheric 
arm  of  the  vital  body  which  hovers  over  the  grave  also  dis- 
appears, and  so  on  until  the  last  vestige  of  the  body  is 
gone.  But  where  cremation  is  performed  the  vital  body 
disintegrates  at  once,  and  as  that  is  the  store-house  of  the 
pictures  of  the  past  life,  which,  being  etched  upon  the 
desire  body  to  form  the  basis  of  life  in  Purgatory  and  the 
First  Heaven,  this  would  be  a  great  calamity  where  cre- 
mation is  performed  before  the  three  and  a  half  days  are 
past.  Unless  help  were  given,  the  passing  spirit  could  not 
hold  it  together.  And  that  is  part  of  the  work  that  is  done 
by  the  invisible  helpers  for  humanity.  Sometimes  they  are 
assisted  by  nature  spirits  and  others  detailed  by  the  Crea- 
tive Hierarchies  or  leaders  of  humanity.  There  is  also 
a  loss  where  one  is  cremated  before  the  silver  cord  has 
broken  naturally,  the  imprint  upon  the  desire  body  is  never 
as  deep  as  it  would  otherwise  have  been,  and  this  has  an 
effect  upon  future  lives,  for  the  deeper  the  imprint  of  the 
past  life  upon  the  desire  body,  the  keener  the  sufferings  in 
Purgatory  for  the  ill  committed  and  the  keener  also  the 
pleasure  in  the  First  Heaven  which  results  from  the  good 
deeds  of  the  past  life.  It  is  these  pains  and  pleasures  in 
Purgatory  of  our  past  lives  that  are  what  we  call  con- 
science, so  that  where  we  have  lost  in  suffering  we  lose  also 
the  realization  of  wrong  which  is  to  deter  us  in  future 
lives  from  committing  the  same  mistakes  over  and  over 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  113 

again.  Therefore,  the  effects  of  the  premature  cremation 
are  very  far  reaching.  Sad  it  is  to  say,  that  while  we 
have  a  science  of  birth  with  obstetricians,  trained  nurses, 
antiseptics  and  everything  else  necessary  to  the  comfort  and 
well  being  of  a  little  stranger,  we  sadly  lack  a  science  of 
death  to  help  us  to  care  for  the  departing  friends  of  a  life- 
time. 


QUESTION  No.  54. 

//  a  person  has  lost  his  memory  through  nervous  shock 
or  fever,  does  that  affect  his  vital  body  and  prevent  him 
from  getting  the  record  of  his  life  in  the  three  days  imme- 
diately following  death? 


Answer:  No.  Memory  is  of  three  kinds :  There  is,  in 
the  first  place,  the  record  which  is  made  by  our  senses. 
We  look  about  us  in  the  world,  we  see  and  hear  things, 
these  impressions  are  engraven  upon  the  cells  of  our  brain 
and  we  are  able  to  consciously  call  them  back — yet  not 
always,  but  in  varying  degree,  for  this  memory  is  extremely 
unreliable  and  capricious,  and  were  this  the  only  method 
of  gaining  a  record  of  our  lives  the  law  of  cause  and  effect 
would  be  invalidated — our  after  life  would  not  be  a  sequence 
of  what  we  have  done  or  left  undone  in  the  past. 


114  EOSICBUCTAN  PHILOSOPHY 

There  must  be  another  memory,  and  this  is  what  scien- 
tists have  called  the  subconscious  mind.  Just  as  ether  car- 
ries to  the  camera  of  the  photographer  a  record  of  the  sur- 
rounding landscape  and  imprints  it  upon  the  sensitive 
plate  to  the  minutest  detail,  regardless  of  whether  the 
photographer  observed  these  details  or  not,  so  also  does  the 
same  ether  which  carries  a  picture  to  our  eye  and  imprints 
it  upon  the  retina  carry  into  our  lungs  a  similar  picture 
which  then  is  absorbed  by  the  blood,  and  as  the  blood  passes 
through  the  heart  this  record  is  indelibly  inscribed  upon 
the  sensitive  seed  atom  which  is  located  in  the  left  ventricle 
of  the  heart  near  the  apex.  The  forces  of  that  seed  atom 
are  taken  out  by  the  spirit  at  death  and  contain  the  record 
of  the  whole  life  to  the  minutest  detail,  so  that,  regardless 
of  whether  we  have  observed  the  facts  in  a  certain  scene  or 
not,  they  are,  nevertheless,  there. 

George  Du  Maurier  has  written  a  story  called  "Peter 
Ibbettson,"  wherein  this  theory  of  the  subconscious  memory 
is  very  clearly  shown.  Peter  Ibbettson,  a  prisoner  in  an 
English  penitentiary,  learned  how  to  "dream  true,'7  that  is 
to  say,  by  putting  his  body  in  a  certain  position  he  learned 
how  to  lock  the  currents  of  ether  within  himself  so  that  at 
night  he  was  able  at  will  to  keep  in  touch  with  any  scene 
in  his  past  life  that  he  desired  to ;  there  he  would  see  him- 
self as  a  spectator  (grown  man  that  he  was),  and  he  would 
also  see  himself  among  his  parents  and  playmates  and  in 
the  environment  as  he  was  at  the  time  that  scene  wa-> 
enacted.  He  would  see  the  whole  scene  with  many  more 
details  than  he  had  been  able  to  observe  at  the  time  when 
the  events  took  place  in  this  material  world.  That  was 
because,  under  these  circumstances,  he  could  get  in  touch 
with  his  own  subconscious  memory.  He  would  have  been 
unable  to  gain  any  information  concerning  the  future,  but 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  115 

the  past  had  been  inscribed  upon  the  tablet  of  his  heart  and 
was,  therefore,  accessible  under  the  proper  conditions.  It 
is  from  this  subconscious  memory  that  the  record  of  life 
is  taken  after  death,  and  as  that  is  dependent  upon  the 
breath  alone,  it  continues  regardless  of  all  other  circum- 
stances while  life  is  in  the  body,  and  though  a  man  may 
lose  his  conscious  memory  and  become  unable  to  recall  past 
events  at  will,  the  subconscious  memory  contains  them  all 
and  will  give  them  up  at  the  proper  time. 


QUESTION  No.  55. 

//  a  disembodied  spirit  can  pass  through  a  wall,  can  it 
also  pass  through  a  mountain  and  the  earth,  and  can  it  see 
what  is  inside? 


Answer:  That  depends  upon  what  kind  of  a  disem- 
bodied spirit  the  enquirer  has  in  mind.  When  a  man  dies, 
he  is  just  the  same  as  he  was  before  with  the  exception  that 
he  has  no  dense  body  and,  therefore,  it  is  perfectly  possible 
for  him  to  pass  through  a  wall  or  mountain  either.  But 
he  is  not  able  to  pass  through  the  earth. 

It  is  a  well  known  fact  that,  though  most  clairvoyants 
and  ordinary  psychics  are  capable  of  telling  much  about 


116  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  sights  and  the  scenes  of  the  Desire  World,  there  is  very 
little  information  at  hand  concerning  the  inside  of  the 
earth,  for  it  is  found  by  ordinary  clairvoyants  that  if  they 
attempt  to  enter  the  earth  there  is  something  like  the  same 
effect  as  when  a  man  hurls  himself  against  a  wall.  That 
is  because  the  earth  is  the  body  of  a  great  spirit  and  that 
spirit  may  not  be  approached  in  its  inner  recesses,  except 
by  the  path  of  initiation.  There  are  nine  layers  of  vary- 
ing thickness  in  the  earth  around  the  core,  which  forms,  as 
it  were,  a  tenth  part,  and  the  Lesser  Mysteries  are  the  gate 
which  leads  to  that  innermost  core.  There  are  nine  degrees 
in  the  Lesser  Mysteries,  and  in  each  degree  the  candidate 
becomes  able  to  penetrate  into  the  corresponding  layer  of 
the  earth,  while  the  tenth  initiation  belongs  to  the  Greater 
Mysteries  where  there  are  four  divisions.  The  first  teaches 
all  that  can  be  known  by  man  in  the  Earth  Period;  the 
second  of  the  great  initiations  would  bring  him  the  knowl- 
edge that  will  be  gained  by  all  humanity  at  the  end  of  the 
Jupiter  Period ;  the  third  of  the  great  initiations  would 
bring  him  the  wisdom  attained  by  humanity  at  the  end  of 
the  Venus  Period,  and  the  fourth  would  end  his  evolution 
in  the  present  scheme.  He  would  have  the  same  standing 
as  humanity  will  have  at  the  end  of  the  Vulcan  Period. 
Then  he  will  know  all  that  the  earth  will  contain  in  this 
embodiment  and  its  future  manifestations.  The  Lesser 
Mysteries  will  al°o  have  taught  him  the  evolution  he  went 
through  in  the  three  periods  previous  to  our  present  Earth 
Period.  It  is  these  secrets  which  are  locked  up  in  the 
earth,  until  man  has  opened  the  door  himself  in  the  proper 
manner,  so  that  no  spirit,  whether  in  the  body  or  discarnate, 
can  see  what  is  inside  the  earth  until  the  gate  of  initiation 
has  opened  its  latent  faculties. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

QUESTION  No.  56. 

Do  we  meet  our  loved  ones  after  death,  even  if  they  hav4 
held  a  different  belief  from  our  own?  Or,  perhaps,  been 
atheists? 


Answer:  Yes,  we  certainly  meet  them  and  we  know 
them,  for  there  is  no  transforming  power  in  death.  The 
man  will  appear  just  as  he  was  here  because  he  thinks  of 
himself  as  being  of  that  shape,  but  the  place  where  we 
meet,  of  course,  depends  upon  several  things. 

In  the  first  place,  if  we  have  lived  a  very  religious  life, 
so  that  we  shall  have  no  existence  at  all  in  Purgatory  and 
but  a  very  short  existence  in  the  First  Heaven,  going  almost 
directly  to  the  Second  Heaven,  whereas,  the  one  whom  we 
love  was  of  such  a  nature  that  he  would  have  a  long  stay 
in  the  Desire  World,  then,  of  course,  we  should  not  meet 
until  he  arrived  in  the  Second  Heaven.  If  we  pass  out 
shortly  after  our  friend,  the  meeting  would  not  take  place 
for  perhaps  twenty  years;  but  then,  that  would  not  mat- 
ter, for  in  those  regions  a  person  is  entirely  unconscious  of 
time. 

The  materialistic  friend,  if  he  had  lived  a  good  moral 
life,  as  we  usually  find  that  those  people  do,  would  remain 
in  the  fourth  region  of  the  Desire  World  for  a  certain 
number  of  years,  according  to  the  length  of  time  he  had 
lived,  and  would  then  pass  into  the  Second  Heaven, 
though  he  would  not  have  there  as  full  and  as  perfect  a 
consciousness  as  that  possessed  by  a  person  who  had  been 
dwelling  on  the  realities  of  life. 

We  would  see  him,  know  him  and  be  associated  with  him 
for  centuries  in  the  work  upon  our  future  environment,  and' 


118  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

there  he  would  not  be  materialistic  at  all,  for  when  the 
spirit  arrives  in  that  high  region,  it  is  not  under  the  delu- 
sions which  sometimes  envelop  it  here  in  this  material 
world.  Each  and  every  one  knows  himself  as  a  spiritual 
being  and  feels  the  memory  of  this  earth  life  as  we  feel  a 
bad  dream.  The  spirit,  upon  entering  that  world,  wakes  up 
to  its  own  true  nature  in  any  case. 


QUESTION  No.  57. 

Do  we  recognize  loved  ones  who  have  passed  out  through 
the  gate  of  death? 


Answer:  Yes,  we  certainly  do.  When  a  man  passes 
out  of  this  body,  he  is  exactly  the  same  as  he  was  before. 
There  is  no  difference  whatever,  except  that  he  has  no 
physical  body;  he  sees  himself  i-n  the  Desire  World,  and  as 
he  retains  in  his  consciousness  a  picture  of  himself  as  he 
looked  here,  this  desire  body  will  at  once  take  the  shape 
possessed  by  the  physical  body,  so  that  any  one  who  had 
known  him  in  earth  life  will  also  know  him  when  he  has 
passed  over  into  the  beyond.  Besides,  it  may  be  well  to 
add  that  there  is  no  transforming  power  in  death — that  man 
is  also  mentally  and  morally  the  same  person.  We  often 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  H9 

hear  people  who  have  loved  some  one  speak  of  the  dear, 
departed  angel,  even  if  they  conceded  that  he  was  very  much 
of  a  devil  here  in  earth  life,  but  they  usually  think  it 
irreverent  to  refer  to  him  as  such  when  he  has  passed  out. 
The  fact  remains,  nevertheless,  that  only  those  who  were 
good  here  are  good  there. 


QUESTION  No.  58. 

Does  the  man  who  commits  suicide  stay  longer  in  Purga- 
tory than  the  people  ivho  die  naturally? 


\  Answer:  When  the  Ego  is  coming  down  to  rebirth  it 
descends  through  the  Second  Heaven.  There  it  is  helped 
by  the  Creative  Hierarchies  to  build  the  archetype  for  its 
coming  body,  and  it  instills  into  that  archetype  a  life  that 
will  last  for  a  certain  number  of  years.  These  archetypes 
are  hollow  spaces  and  they  have  a  singing,  vibratory  mo- 
tion which  draws  the  material  of  the  Physical  World  into 
them  and  sets  all  the  atoms  in  the  body  to  vibrating  in 
tune  with  a  little  atom  that  is  in  the  heart,  called  the  seed 
atonn,  which,  like  a  tuning  fork,  gives  the  pitch  to  all  the 
rest  of  the  material  in  the  body.  At  the  time  when  the  full 
life  has  been  lived  on  the  earth  the  vibrations  in  the  arche-1 


120  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

type  cease,  the  seed  atom  is  withdrawn,  the  dense  body 
goes  to  decay  and  the  desire  body,  wherein  the  Ego  func- 
tions in  Purgatory  and  the  First  Heaven,  takes  upon  itself 
the  shape  of  the  physical  body.  Then  the  man  commences 
his  work  of  expiating  his  evil  habits  and  deeds  in  Purga- 
tory and  assimilating  the  good  of  his  life  in  the  First 
Heaven. 

The  foregoing  describes  the  ordinary  conditions  when  the 
course  of  nature  is  undisturbed,  but  the  case  of  the  suicide 
is  different.  He  has  taken  away  the  seed  atom,  but  the 
hollow  archetype  still  keeps  on  vibrating.  Therefore  he 
feels  as  if  he  were  hollowed  out  and  experiences  a  gnawing 
feeling  inside  that  can  best  be  likened  to  the  pangs  of  in- 
tense hunger.  Material  for  the  building  of  a  dense  body 
is  all  around  him,  but  seeing  that  he  lacks  the  gauge  of  the 
seed  atom,  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  assimilate  that  matter 
and  build  it  into  a  body.  This  dreadful  hollowed-out  feel- 
ing lasts  as  long  as  his  ordinary  life  should  have  lasted. 
Thus  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  teaches  him  that  it  is  wrong 
to  play  truant  from  the  school  of  life  and  that  it  cannot 
be  done  with  impunity.  Then  in  the  next  life,  when  diffi- 
culties beset  his  path,  he  will  remember  the  sufferings  of 
the  past  which  resulted  from  suicide  and  go  through  with 
the  experience  that  makes  for  his  soul  growth. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  121 

QUESTION  No.  59. 

Does  a  good  man  have  to  go  through  Purgatory  and  be 
conscious  of  all  the  evil  there  before  he  can  get  into  the 
First,  Second  and  Third  Heaven?  And,  if  so,  isn't  that  an 
undeserved  punishment  for  him? 


Answer:  The  inquirer  should  get  away  from  the  idea 
of  punishment.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  punishment. 
Whatever  happens  to  a  man  is  in  consequence  of  immutable, 
invariable  laws,  and  there  is  no  personal  God  who  gives 
rewards  or  punishments  as  he  sees  fit,  according  to  an  in- 
scrutible  will  or  any  other  such  method.  When  the  Ego 
invests  itself  with  bodies,  or  when  it  divests  itself  of  its 
vehicles,  this  is  done  on  the  very  same  principle  and  by  the 
very  same  laws  that  govern,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  a 
planet.  When  a  planet  is  being  formed  from  the  central 
firemist,  a  crystallization  has  taken  place  at  the  poles  where 
motion  is  the  slowest.  The  crystallized  matter  is  thrown 
out  by  centrifugal  force  and  flies  into  space  because  it  is 
heavier  than  the  rest  of  the  firemist.  For  similar  reasons, 
when  the  body  of  the  spirit  which  is  densest  has  become  so 
crystallized  and  heavy  that  the  spirit  can  no  longer  use  it 
to  gain  experience  the  process  of  disrobernent  is  accom- 
plished by  the  centrifugal  force  which  naturally  eliminates 
the  dense  body  first.  That  is  what  we  call  death.  Then 
the  spirit  is  free  for  a  time,  but  the  coarsest  desire 
matter  which  was  the  embodiment  for  the  lowest  pas- 
sions and  desires  must  also  be  thrown  off,  and  it  is  the 
forcible  ejection  of  low  desires  that  causes  pain  in  Pur- 
gatory where  the  centrifugal  force  of  repulsion  is  the 
strongest.  If  a  man  has  any  of  that  coarse  matter  in  his 


122  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

desire  body,  naturally  he  will  have  to  stay  in  Purgatory 
and  undergo  the  process  of  purgation  before  he  can  enter 
the  First  Heaven.  There  the  centripetal  force  of  attrac- 
tion whirls  all  the  good  in  the  life  inward  to  the  spiritual 
center,  where  it  is  assimilated  as  soul  power  available  for 
the  use  of  the  spirit  in  its  next  earth  life  as  conscience. 
Thus  our  stay  in  Purgatory  depends  upon  how  much  of  the 
coarse  desire  matter  there  is  in  the  man,  and  a  good  man 
naturally  would  have  very  little  or  nothing  of  that  kind. 
Therefore,  he  would  have  no  life  to  speak  of  in  Purgatory; 
he  would  pass  directly  through  those  regions  into  the 
Heaven  World. 


QUESTION  Xo.  60. 

What  is  the  condition  of  the  victim  of  a  murder  and  the 
victim  of  an  accident  subsequent  to  death? 


Answer:  There  is  no  such  thing  as  an  accident,  at  least 
where  the  accident  terminates  fatally.  The  life  of  any 
person  in  its  ultimate  length  is  ordinarily  decreed  before 
birth,  but  there  are  certain  points  of  life  where  there  is  as 
it  were  a  parting  of  the  ways,  where  certain  opportunities 
for  growth  are  placed  before  the  person,  which  he  may 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  1^3 

either  take  or  leave.  Where  he  fails  to  use  his  opportuni- 
ties, the  life,  as  it  were,  runs  into  a  blind  alley,  and 
terminates  shortly  afterward. 

That,  however,  is  not  usually  the  case  in  an  accident,  but 
there  may  be  certain  reasons  which  make  it  desirable  that 
the  man  should  be  cast  out  of  his  body  in  a  violent  manner. 
He  is  then  in  the  same  position  as  all  others  when  they  have 
passed  out ;  he  commences  his  Purgatorial  existence  at  once. 

The  case  of  the  victim  of  murder,  like  the  case  of  the 
suicide,  is  different.  Man,  on  account  of  his  divine  nature, 
is  the  only  being  who  has  the  prerogative  of  causing  dis- 
order in  the  scheme  of  his  unfoldment,  and  as  he  may  end 
his  own  life  by  an  act  of  will,  so  may  he  also  end  the  life 
of  a  fellow  creature  before  its  time  has  come.  The  suffer- 
ing of  the  suicide  would  also  be  the  suffering  of  the  mur- 
dered, for  the  archetype  of  his  body  would  keep  on  gather- 
ing material  which  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  assimi- 
late ;  but  in  his  case,  the  intervention  of  other  agencies  pre- 
vent the  suffering  and  he  will  be  found  floating  about  in  his 
desire  body,  in  a  comatose  state,  for  the  length  of  time  that 
he  would  ordinarily  have  lived.  If  the  murderer  is  brought 
to  justice,  as  we  say,  and  suffers  capital  punishment,  the 
magnetic  attraction  will  bring  him  together  with  his  vic- 
tim, who  will  constantly  remain  before  his  gaze,  and  that 
is  really  a  much  more  severe  punishment  than  any  which 
we  could  mete  out  to  him ;  but  the  victim  knows  naught  of 
the  presence  of  its  slayer. 


124:  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  61. 
Where  is  heaven? 


Answer:  The  Christ  said  "Heaven  is  within,"  and  yet 
we  are  shown  that  at  the  time  when  He  left  His  disciples, 
He  ascended  into  heaven.  To  understand  this,  we  must 
analyze  the  constitution  of  a  planet,  and  according  to  the 
hermetic  action  "as  above  so  below,"  we  shall  understand 
better  if  we  first  analyze  the  constitution  of  man. 

The  man  has  first  the  dense  body  which  we  see  with  our 
eyes,  but  that  dense  body  is  not  as  solid  as  it  appears;  in 
fact  it  is  permeated  by  a  number  of  invisible  vehicles.  It 
is  composed  of  the  solids,  the  liquids  and  the  gases  of  the 
chemical  region,  but  these,  science  tells  us,  are  interpene- 
trated by  ether,  for  man's  body  is  no  different  from  all 
other  things  in  the  world,  and  in  the  densest  solid  as  in  the 
rarest  gas,  science  says,  and  says  truly,  every  little  atom  is 
vibrating  in  a  sea  of  ether.  This  ether  is  still  physical 
matter;  a  considerable  portion  is  specialized  by  man  and 
forms  an  exact  counterpait  of  our  dense  body,  besides  pro- 
truding about  an  inch  and  a  half  beyond  the  periphery  of 
our  visible  body.  It  was  this  part  that  the  doctors  in  Bos- 
ton weighed  by  placing  dying  people  on  scales.  They  noted 
that  when  the  last  breath  was  drawn  something  having 
weight  left  the  body  and  the  side  of  the  scales  which  had 
the  weight  on  it  fell  to  the  floor  with  startling  suddenness. 
The  newspaper  reporters  claimed  that  the  doctors  had 
weighed  the  soul,  but  what  they  did  weigh  was  this  vital 
body  composed  of  ether  which  leaves  the  body  at  death. 

We  have  a  still  finer  vehicle  called  ilia  desire  body,  which 
is  composed  of  what  occultists  call  desire  stuff,  and  it  may 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  125 

be  seen  by  one  having  the  sixth  sense  unfolded  as  an  egg- 
shaped  cloud  enveloping  the  dense  body  on  all  sides,  so  that 
the  latter  is  located  in  the  center  of  the  desire  body,  as 
the  yolk  is  in  the  center  of  the  egg,  with  the  differ- 
ence only  that  while  the  white  envelops  the  yolk  but  does 
not  interpenetrate,  this  desire  body  permeates  both  the  vital 
body  and  the  dense  body  in  every  nook  and  cranny.  There 
is  a  still  finer  material  in  the  makeup  of  man  which  we  may 
call  "mind  stuff,"  composed  of  the  coarsest  material  of  the 
world  of  thought,  the  material  wherein  we  form  our  con-» 
crete  thoughts,  and  this  envelopes  the  indwelling  Ego. 

The  world  is  similarly  constituted.  Besides  this  visible 
world  which  we  see,  composed  of  the  solids,  liquids  and 
gases, , and  interpenetrated  by  ether,  there  is  also  a  Desire 
World  which  permeates  every  part  of  the  Physical  World 
and  reaches  out  into  space  beyond  both  air  and  ether.  Then 
there  is  the  World  of  Thought,  and  that  also  penetrates 
every  part  of  our  planet,  from  center  to  circumference, 
reaching  out  into  space  still  farther  than  any  of  the  other 
worlds. 

During  earth  life,  man  lives  upon  this  firm,  visible  earth, 
but  after  death,  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  he 
may  be  still  imprisoned  here,  as  the  Purgatory  regions  are 
everywhere  around  and  about  us,  also  below  in  the  inner 
recesses  of  the  earth.  The  First  Heaven  is  also  here  in  a 
certain  sense,  insofar  as  similar  material  to  that  of  which 
it  is  constituted  is  around  and  about  us,  but  the  First 
Heaven  itself,  the  place  where  the  spirits  who  have  beer/ 
liberated  usually  dwell,  is  beyond  our  atmosphere.  The 
Second  Heaven  may  also  be  truly  said  to  be  within,  for  the 
material  of  which  it  is  constituted  is  here  and  the  spirits 
who  are  there  might  visit  us,  yet  the  conditions  here,  the 
thought  currents,  etc.,  would  be  derogatory  to  their  work 


126  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  development.  Therefore,  they  prefer  to  stay  in  the 
farthermost,  outermost  part  of  our  planet,  where  the  pure 
mind  stuff  is  unsullied  by  our  selfish  and  deleterious 
thought  currents. 

The  Third  Heaven  is  a  place  of  which  very  few  people 
at  the  present  stage  of  development  have  any  consciousness, 
because  most  of  us  are  guided  in  our  thought  activities 
more  by  emotions  and  feelings  concerning  concrete  things 
than  by  abstract  thought,  which  is  the  peculiar  faculty  per- 
taining to  the  Third  Heaven.  When  we  think  of  love,  we 
usually  think  of  love  in  connection  with  some  person;  that 
is  a  concrete  thought.  But  of  Love  in  the  abstract,  very 
few  of  us  are  able  to  think.  We  can  think  of  a  house,  an 
animal,  etc.,  they  are  concrete,  but  we  dislike  to  think  of  an 
abstract  proposition  such  as,  for  instance,  that  the  square 
of  the  hypothenuse  equals  the  squares  of  the  other  two  sides 
of  a  triangle.  Therefore,  most  of  us  have  very  little  con- 
sciousness in  the  Third  Heaven,  and  consequently  very  little 
of  the  material  of  that  world  is  in  the  makeup  of  our 
planet. 


1 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  127 

QUESTION  No.  62. 

It  is  said  that  there  is  no  sorrow  in  heaven,  but  if  our 
loved  ones  are  met  there  and  then  pass  on,  does  not  the  part- 
ing from  them  involve  at  least  a  sense  of  dissatisfaction? 


Answer:  No,  it  does  not,  for  there  we  see  things  as 
they  are.  Here  we  are  blinded.  When  the  Ego  comes 
into  the  Physical  World,  it  is  in  one  sense  a  cause  for 
rejoicing,  as  we  rejoice  at  the  birth  of  a  child,  for  this 
world  affords  us  experience  and  material  for  soul  growth. 
But  looking  at  it  from  another  point  of  view,  when  the 
Ego  comes  into  this  world  and  enters  the  prison  house  of 
the  dense  body,  it  is  in  the  most  limited  condition  imagi- 
nable, and  to  rejoice  at  the  time  when  the  child  is  born 
and  lament  when  it  is  liberated  by  death  is  in  reality 
analogous  to  rejoicing  when  a  friend  is  put  in  jail  and 
giving  way  to  hysterical  lamentations  when  he  is  liberated. 

When  the  spirit  passes  into  the  Heaven  World,  it  meets 
a  number  of  those  with  whom  it  has  associated  in  earth 
life  in  the  First  Heaven,  but  there  it  has  already  become 
so  spiritual  and  so  much  in  touch  with  the  realities  that 
it  knows  there  is  no  death.  Therefore,  when  someone 
passes  into  the  beyond  there  is  a  rejoicing  and  a  pleasure  at 
the  preferment  of  one  whom  we  hold  dear,  and  the  knowl- 
edge that  we  shall  meet  again  will  certainly  take  away 
any  pang  that  might  be  felt  by  those  who  are  left  behind. 


128  EOSICRUCTAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  63. 

Please  explain  Jiow  to  concentrate  in  order  to  help  those 
in  the  other  world?  Do  you  mean  sitting  in  the  silence 
and  sending  out  loving,  helpful  thoughts  to  them? 


Answer:  The  ability  to  send  out  a  thought  and  the 
power  that  that  thought  has  to  accomplish  the  purpose 
for  which  it  is  sent,  depends  upon  the  definiteness  where- 
with the  thinker  is  able  to  visualize  that  which  he  desires 
to  accomplish.  And  the  usual  occult  schools,  particularly 
those  along  the  lines  of  Eastern  thought,  advise  the  method 
of  concentration  whereby  thoughts  are  focused  upon  one 
single  point,  as  the  rays  of  the  sun  are  brought  to  a  focus 
in  a  magnifying  glass,  for  thus  their  forces  are  massed, 
and  as  the  sun's  rays  will  burn  when  focused,  so  will  the 
thought  invariably  accomplish  its  object  when  concen- 
trated to  a  sufficient  intensity. 

It  takes  long  practice,  however,  to  learn  how  to  do  that, 
and  there  are  very  few  people  in  the  West  who  are  able  to 
thus  direct  their  thoughts  to  any  purpose.  The  western 
religion,  recognizing  this  disability,  teaches  another  method 
which  is  much  more  efficient  than  concentration,  namely, 
prayer. 

Therefore,  if  we  wish  to  help  those  who  have  passed 
out  of  the  body,  we  may  pray  earnestly  for  their  welfare 
and  that  they  may  learn  the  lessons  of  this  life  thoroughly 
in  their  experiences  in  Purgatory  and  the  First  Heaven; 
then  we  shall  accomplish  much  more  than  if  we  try  the 
cold,  intellectual  method  of  concentration.  The  attitude 
of  the  body  sometimes  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the 
intensity  of  the  prayer,  and  if  a  kneeling  position  seems 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  139 

to  facilitate  the  act,  the  kneeling  position  should  be  taken. 
On  the  other  hand,  as  Emerson  said: 

"And  though  your  knees  are  never  bent 
To  Heaven,  your  hourly  prayers  are  sent; 
And,  be  1  hey  formed  for  good  or  ill, 
Are  registered  and  answered  still," 

so  that  the  attitude  of  the  body  during  the  act  of  prayer  is 
immaterial  except  as  found  to  be  conducive  to  produce  the 
greatest  intensity  of  purpose;  for  that  is  what  makes  the 
prayer  effective. 


QUESTION  No.  64. 

Do  those  who  have  passed  out  of  earth  life  keep  watch 
and  ward  over  us  who  are  left  behind;  for  instance,  do 
mothers  look  after  their  little  children,  or  even  the  larger 
ones  ? 


Answer:  Yes;  very  often  a  mother  who  has  recently 
passed  out  will  watch  over  her  little  children  for  a  long 
time,  and  instances  have  been  recorded  where  mothers 
have  saved  their  babes  from  dangers.  Though  not  know- 
ing consciously  how  to  materialize,  love  for  the  little  ones 
and  intense  fear  for  their  safety  caused  the  mothers  in 


130  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

such  instances  to  draw  to  themselves  material  so  that  they 
could  be  seen  by  the  little  ones.  Those  whom  we  call  dead 
do  not  usually  go  away  from  the  house  where  they  have 
lived  until  quite  a  long  time  after  the  funeral.  They 
stay  in  the  familiar  rooms  and  move  about  among  us, 
although  they  are  unseen  by  us.  Of  course,  when  their 
time  comes  to  go  into  the  First  Heaven,  they  do  not  remain 
any  longer  in  our  houses,  but  very  often  they  visit  them. 
When  in  time  they  enter  the  Second  Heaven,  they  are  no 
longer  conscious  of  this  physical  sphere  in  the  sense  of 
having  homes,  or  friends,  or  relatives ;  they  are  then  rather 
to  be  looked  upon  as  nature  forces,  for  the  time  being,  for 
they  work  upon  the  earth  and  humanity  in  the  very  same 
manner  as  the  nature  forces  who  do  not  take  human' 
embodiment. 

Thus  it  is  perfectly  true  that  they  watch  over  their 
loved  ones  for  a  long  time  after  they  have  passed  out,  and 
it  has  been  often  noted  by  persons  attending  the  death  of 
a  mother  whose  children  had  passed  out,  perhaps  a  num- 
ber of  years  before,  that  at  fne  time  of  dying  she  would 
see  the  children  around  her  bed  and  exclaim :  "Why,  there 
is  Johnny,  and  what  a  big  boy  he  has  grown  to  be,"  and 
so  on.  The  people  around  the  bed  would  probably  think 
that  a  hallucination,  but  it  is  not,  and  it  will  be  noted  that 
a  certain  phenomenon  always  attends  those  visions,  namely, 
when  a  person  dies  there  comes  over  him  a  darkness  which 
he  feels  descending  upon  him.  Many  persons  pass  out 
without  again  seeing  the  Physical  World.  That  is  the 
change  from  our  light  vibrations  to  the  vibrations  of  the 
Desire  World,  and  is  similar  to  the  darkness  that  spread 
over  the  earth  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion.  With  other1 
people  it  happens  that  the  darkness  lifts  after  a  moment 
and  then  the  person  is  clairvoyant,  seeing  both  the  present 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

world  and  the  Desire  World,  and  there,  of  course,  appear 
the  loved  ones,  who  have  been  attracted  by  the  impending 
death,  which  is  a  birth  into  their  world. 
_  Thus  we  may  say  tliat_ouxJ.oyed_  ones  are  interested  in 
our  welfare  for  a  long  time  after  passing  out,  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  there  is  no  transforming  power"  in 
death;  that  it  does  not  give  them  any  special  ability  to  care 
for  us,  and  that  they  have,  no  means  of  really  influencing 
'our  affairs,  so  that  it  is  not  quite  right  to  look  upon  them 
as  our  guardian  angels.  They  are  merely  Interested  spec- 
tators except  in  a  few  specific  cases  where  an  intense  love 
enables  them  to  perform  some  slight  service  in  case  of 
great  need.  That  service,  however,  would  never  take  the 
form  of  enriching  us  or  anything 'like  that,  but  is  more 
in  the  nature  of  a  warning  of  danger  or  the  like. 


* 


132 


KOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 


A-LIFE-GYCLE 


Almd£sserice 
Thoufhfv5oul-Essence  of 
'Rifht  Reltof  built  mt 


ds 


Desire  fw  Experience- 
d  Soul°Gro»vtfr 
drdivs  the  EV> 
To  Re.Birth 


Good  inpevst  life  butUinto 
the  M'md  asHi^ 
«Uo  K-orh  on  New 


It  Gathers 
Materials  for 

Ne»v  Mind 


World 


dnd 


Thought 


Essence  of  dim  built  info 
Soul  ds  Rvjht  "Feeling 

Suffering  pur«j»-5  Soul 


Soul  views  panorama  of  I  _« 
...»  1  -.c,  Gl    I  feet* 


past  L>'i[ 


of  Ment&lit? 


Chans*- 


pr'nne  of  L'i[e 


[42       p  14 

:paGro^ri^    te     5^ft* of fU- Majority 


lal 
World 


Bfc<j|Rr7ia?  of  Serious   L»«ffe 


This  chart  shows  the  passage  of  the  Ego,  which  is  represented 
by  the  wheel  at  the  top  of  the  diagram,  through  Purgatory;  the 
various  Heavens,  and  its  return  to  Rebirth;  also  the  septenary- 
epochs  of  earth-life. 


SECTION  III 

Questions  concerning 

REBIRTH 


QUESTION  No.  £5. 

Why,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  we  reincarnated,  with- 
out having  the  slightest  knowledge  of  any  previous  exist- 
ence, to  suffer  blindly  in  this  life  for  transgressions  com- 
mitted in  some  former  life  of  which  we  are  now  entirely 
ignorant?  Could  we  not  advance  better  and  quicker  spir- 
itually if  we  knew  where  we  had  erred  before  and  what  acts 
we  must  correct  before  we  can  progress? 


Answer:  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  to  man  that 
he  does  not  know  his  previous  experiences  until  he  has  at- 
tained considerable  spiritual  advancement,  because  there 
are  in  our  past  lives  (when  wTe  were  much  more  ignorant 
than  we  are  now)  dark  deeds  that  call  for  retribution,  and 
this  fate  is  being  gradually  liquidated,  so  that  did  we 
know  our  past  lives,  did  we  know  how  and  when  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect  wrill  bring  to  us  retribution  for  past 
misdeeds,  we  would  see  this  impending  calamity  hovering 
over  us,  and  fear  of  our  fate  would  then  be  apt  to  rob  us 
of  the  strength  wherewith  to  battle  against  it,  and  at  the 
time  of  its  arrival  we  should  stand  appalled  and  helpless. 

On  the  other  hand,  not  knowing  what  is  behind  us,  we 
escape  knowing  what  is  before  us,  and,  therefore,  we  learn 
the  lessons  without  being  deprived  of  our  strength  by  fear 
Besides,  for  those  who  wish  to  know,  there  are  certain 
means  of  knowing  what  lessons  we  are  to  learn  and  how 
best  to  learn  them.  For  instance,  our  conscience  tells  what 

135 


136  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

we  are  to  do  or  not  to  do.  If  we  care  to  study  the  science 
of  astrology  the  horoscope  tells  us  our  tendencies  and  the 
lines  of  least  resistance,  so  that  by  working  with  these  laws 
of  nature  Tre  may  advance  quickly,  and  the  more  we  follow 
the  dictates  of  our  conscience  the  more  we  study  the  laws 
of  nature  as  revealed  by  astronomy,  the  quicker  we  shall 
be.  ready  for  first-hand  knowledge. 

In  "Zanoni,"  Bulwer  Lytton  speaks  of  a  fearsome  specter 
which  met  Glyndon  as  he  was  attempting  to  enter  a  step 
in  unfoldment  not  hitherto  attained  by  him,  and  that  is 
called  in  Occultism  the  "Dweller  on  the  Threshold."  Be- 
tween the  time  of  death  and  a  new  birth,  this  Dweller  on 
the  Threshold  is  not  seen  by  man,  but  it  is  the  embodiment 
of  all  our  past  evil  deeds,  that  must  first  be  passed  by  one 
who  wishes  to  enter  the  inner  worlds  consciously  and  attain 
to  a  full  knowledge  of  conditions  there:  but  there  is  also 
another  Dweller  which  is  the  embodiment  of  all  our  good 
deeds,  and  that  one  may  be  said  to  be  our  Guardian  Angel. 

If  we  have  the  courage  to  pass  the  hideous  one,  which  is 
perceived  first  because  formed  of  coarse  desire  matter,  we 
shall  soon  obtain  the  conscious  help  of  the  other  and  then 
we  shall  have  the  strength  to  stand  fearless  in  the  storms 
of  villification  that  come  to  all  who  attempt  the  path  of 
unselfishness.  But  before  we  have  passed  this  specter  we 
are  not  fitted  for  knowledge  of  our  previous  lives;  we 
must  rest  content  with  the  ordinary  view  given  to  mankind. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEBS  137 

QUESTION  No.  66. 

Are  all  the  human  beings  that  people  the  earth  at  the 
present  time  souls  that  have  gone  through  earth  life  before* 
or  are  new  souls  being  created  all  the  time? 


Answer:  The  ingress  of  the  spirits  into  the  human 
bodies,  as  constituted  at  the  present  time,  commenced  in 
the  stage  of  the  world's  solidification  known  as  the  Lemu- 
rian  Epoch,  and  was  not  fully  completed  until  the  middle 
of  the  Atlantean  Epoch,  a  period  of  time  occupying,  per- 
haps, millions  of  years.  But  since  that  time,  there  has 
been  no  farther  ingress ;  the  door  is  definitely  closed  be-* 
cause  we  have  now  evolved  so  far  that  those  who  had  no*., 
reached  the  stage  where  they  could  manipulate  a  human 
body  at  that  time  would  be  too  far  behind  us  to  catch  up 
with  our  further  development.  Since  that  time,  the  spirits 
which  were  embodied  in  human  shapes  have  been  evolving 
by  repeated  embodiments  so  that,  without  exception,  every 
one  of  the  human  beings  now  on  earth  has  been  embodied 
at  difterent  times  and  in  different  environments. 


138-  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  67. 

How  do  we  know  beyond  a  doubt  that  rebirth  is  a  fact? 
Is  it  not  possible  that  those  who  so  state  may  be  suffering 
from  hallucination  ? 


Answer:  The  trained  clairvoyant  who  is  able  to  read 
in  the  memory  of  nature  may  follow  the  life  of  a  person 
from  their  present  state  backward,  through  the  years  of 
childhood.  He  will  then  see  them  in  infancy,-  follow  them 
through  the  gestatory  period  to  the  time  when  the  spirit 
entered  the  womb  of  the  mother.  He  may  go  back  through 
their  heaven  life,  their  life  in  Purgatory,  arriving  at  the 
time  of  death  inline-  previous  life,  then  follow  them  back- 
ward and  see  the  whole  life.  But  in  the  case  of  an  adult, 
the  time  involved  is  usually  a  thousand  years  or  more,  and 
of  course,  it  is  possible,  were  there  no  other  means  of  veri- 
fication, that  this  might  be  hallucination.  In  the  cases 
of  children,  however,  who  have  not  reached  puberty  there 
is  a  comparatively  short  interval  between  incarnations.  In 
such  a  case  it  is  easy  to  verify  a  reembodiment  among  one's 
own  acquaintances,  and  that  is  in  fact  part  of  the  educa- 
tion of  a  pupil  of  the  Elder  Brothers.  He  is  shown  a  child 
which  is  about  to  die  and  is  told  to  watch  that  child  in  the. 
invisible  world  for  perhap'one  or  two  years,  following  it 
step  by  step  until  it  takes  a  new  embodiment — perhaps 
with  the  same  and  possibly  with  other  parents.  When  the 
pupil  has  thus  followed  an  Ego  through  the  invisible  worlds 
from  one  death  to  the  next  birth,  he  knows  absolutely  that 
the  law  of  rebirth  is  a  fact  in  nature,  and  he  often  has 
occasion  on  account  of  his  other  investigations,  to  pursue 
such  studies  of  the  past  lives  of  many  individuals. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  139 

Still,  it  may  be  urged,  is  not  this  clairvoyance  of  which 
he  speaks  as  his  means  of  investigation  in  itself  a  hallu- 
cination?; May  he  not  be,  although  perfectly  honest,  the 
victim  of  a  chimerical  vision?  It  may  be  stated  in  answer 
to  that  suggestion,  that  he  has  every  day  at  his  disposal 
the  means  for  verifying  his  observations  When  a  man  has 
visited  the  city  of  New  York  and  has  seen  the  city  he  will 
never  be  tempted  to  say,  I  wonder  if  I  could  have  been 
mistaken?  He  lias  'been  there  and  knows  it.  So  it  is 
with  the  clairvoyant.  At  times  when  he  leaves  his  body  he 
meets  and  works  with  people  whom  he  does  not  know  in 
ordinary  life.  Later  he  may  be  invited  to  visit  these 
friends  from  the  invisible  world;  he  may  travel  by  their 
clairvoyant  direction  to  a  city  where  Le  is  a  stranger;  he 
may  find  them  in  the  street  and  house  seen  clairvoyantly, 
recognize  them  and  be  himself  recognized.  He  may  then 
converse  with  these  friends  of  the  things  they  did  and  the 
places  they  visited  in  their  invisible  bodies,  and  if  he  evei 
had  any  doubt  of  the  reality  of  his  life  outside  the  dense 
physical  world,  he  is  then  once  and  for  all  time  convinced 
of  the  reality  of  his  experiences  while  out  of  the  body. 
He  knows  that  they  are  not  strange,  he  knows  that  he  can- 
not have  been  glamored,  but  that  his  life  there,  his  work 
there  and  his  experiences  there  are  as  real  as  his  life,  his 
work  and  his  experiences  here. 


140  BOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  68. 

•  Do  the  souls  that  have  passed  into  Purgatory  and  through 
the' First,  Second  and  Third  Heavens  come  back  here  and 
reincarnate  on  this  earth,  or  do  they  go  to  other  spheres? 


;  Answer:  They  come  back  to  this  earth  again  until  they 
have  learned  the  lessons  that  can  be  .learned  here.  It  is 
essentially  the  same  principle  as  when  we  send  a  child  to 
school.  We  do ; not  send  it  to  kindergarten  one  day,  to 
grammar  school  the  nex-t,  and  to  college  the  third  day,  but 
we  send  it  to  kindergarten  day  after  day  for  a  long  time, 
until  it  has  learned  all  the  lessons  that  are  to  be  learned 
there.  The  knowledge  it  has  gained  in  kindergarten  forms 
the  basis  for  what  it  is  to  learn  in  the  grammar  school; 
that  again  is  sthe  foundation  for  the  lessons  of  the  high 
school  and  the  college.  By  a  similar  process  we  have 
learned  lesson?  under  different  conditions  in  the  past,  and 
in  the  future,  when  we  have  learned  all  that  can  be  learned 
from  our  present  earth  environment,  wo  shall  also  find  the 
tasks  of  higher  evolutions  awaiting. us.  There  is  endless 
progress,  for  we  are  divine  as  our  Father  in  heaven,  and 
limitations  are  impossible. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

QUESTION  No.  69. 

Do  we  come  in  contact  with  the  friends  of  one  life  when 
we  are  born  again  into  a  new  earth  life? 


Answer:  The  law  of  rebirth  has  for  its  companion  law 
the  law  of  causation.  It  will  be  manifestly  apparent  that 
there  are  many  causes  set  going  by  all  of  us  which  do  not 
bring  about  effects  in  this  life.  For  instance,  a  husband 
is  sick  and  the  wife  cares  for  him  with  great  self-sacrifice. 
There  is  obviously  a  debt  there,  and  if  the  sickness  con- 
tinues until  the  end  of  the  husband's  life,  there  is  in  that 
life  no  opportunity  for  a  return  of  the  favor.  73ut  if  we 
know  what  the  laws  of  nature  are  and  how  they  operate, 
we  shall  understand  that  they  are  not  set  aside  by  such 
small  matters  as  cessation  of  life  in  a  certain  body.  If 
we  break  a  limb  it  is  not  healed  the  next  day,  although  we 
may  have  slept  at  night  unconscious  of  our  hurt;  but  when 
we  awaken  the  limb  is  in  about  the  same  condition  as  on 
the  previous  day.  So  it  is  with  the  deeds  done  in  the  body 
in  one  life.  Although  we  pass  through  the  life  between 
death  and  a  new  birth,  and  are  now  unconscious  of  former 
lives,  nevertheless,  when  we  enter  upon  a  new  life,  the  law 
of  association,  the  causes  generated  in  a  former  life,  will 
bring  us  into  a  new  environment  where  we  shall  find  our 
old  friends  and  our  old  foes.  We  know  them,  too,  al- 
though perhaps  we  do  not  directly  recognize  them.  Some- 
times, however,  we  meet  a  person  for  the  first  time  and  are 
drawn  to  that  person;  we  feel  as  if  we  had  known  that 
person  all  our  lives,  and  that  we  could  trust  him  or  her 
with  everything  we  have. .  That  is  because  the  spirit  within 
sees  an  old  friend  and  recognizes  him,  though  unable  to 


142  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

impress  the  recognition  upon  the  brain  it  now  possesses. 
Or  perhaps  we  may  meet  a  person  and  feel  that  we  would 
not  care  to  be  in  his  company;  we  instinctively  dislike 
him  though  we  have  no  reason  from  ordinary  points  of 
view ;  but  there  also  it  is  the  recognition  of  the  spirit  which 
bridges  the  past  and  sees  an  old-time  enemy.  Thus  our 
instinctive  likes  and  dislikes  are  guides,  dictated  by  former* 
experiences,  and  they  will  usually  be  found  to  be  reliable 
in  the  light  of  subsequent  experience. 


QUESTION  No.  70. 

Is  the  experience  gained  in  each  incarnation  recorded 
separately  and  added  to  the  previous  ones,  so  that  in  the 
end  the  spirit  will  be  entirely  conscious  of  the  complete  sum 
of  its  experiences,  or  is  the  experience  of  one  life  more  or 
less  unconsciously  absorbed  by  the  next  succeeding  incarna- 
tion, so  that  only  a  general  effect  is  obtained? 


Answer:  When  we  were  children  we  learned  to  write 
and  we  went  through  many  awkward  motions  before  we 
had  finally  cultivated  the  faculty.  In  the  years  that  have 
gone  by  we  have  forgotten  all  about  the  experiences  we 
went  through  while  learning,  but  our  faculty  remains  ready 
for  our  use  at  any  time  required. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  148 

In  a  similar  manner,  experiences  we  have  had  in  differ- 
ent lives  are  usually  forgotten  by  the  man,  but  the  faculties 
he  has  cultivated  remain  and  are  ready  for  his  use  at  any 
time.  Thus  we  sometimes  see  a  man  who  has  never  had 
a  lesson  in  painting  who  is  nevertheless  an  artist  to  the 
very  tips  of  his  finger  ends,  able  to  paint  the  most  wonder- 
ful pictures.  He  has  brought  over  from  past  lives  a  fac- 
ulty which  he  is  now  able  to  use.  When  we  hear  of  a 
Mozart  composing  at  three  years  of  age,  that  also  shows 
the  accumulation  of  the  sense  of  harmony  in  the  past'. 
Thus  it  may  be  said  that,  although  we  do  not  remember, 
we  always  have  the  faculties  cultivated  in  our  past  lives  for 
use  in  the  present.  It  is  thaf  which  makes  the  difference 
between  man  and  man;  between  the  dunce  and  the  sage. 

There  is,  however,  also  a  record  m  nature  of  our  past 
lives  in  their  minutest  detail.  The  trained  clairvoyant 
who  is  able  to  read  in  the  memory  of  nature  can  follow  the 
past  lives  of  a  man  backwards,  as,  for  instance,  the  film 
of  a  moving  picture  is  unrolled  in  reverse  order.  He  will 
see  the  man's  present  life  first,  his  birth,  his  previous  so- 
journ in  the  invisible  world,  next  the  death  of  the  previous 
life,  which  will  then  unroll  itself  in  reverse  order  through 
old  age,  manhood,  youth,  childhood  and  infancy,  back  to 
that  birth,  and  so  on  through  the  various  lives. 


144  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  71. 

When  the  spirit,  coming  down  to  rebirth,  has  drawn  to 
itself  its  mind  stuff  and  sinks  into  the  Desire  World,  is  it 
not  then  in  Purgatory  again  ? 


Answer:  The  difficulty  of  the  inquirer  is  that  he  has 
not  fully  comprehended  what  constitutes  Purgatory.  Pur- 
gatory is  in  the  lower  regions  of  the  Desire  World,  but 
these  regions  are  not  Purgatory  to  those  who  have  nothing 
to  be  purged  from.  The  low  desires  of  man  are  formed  of 
the  desire  stuff  from  this  region,  and  as  they  cannot  be 
gratified,  the  man  suffers.  Besides,  there  the  force  of  re- 
pulsion is  supreme,  and  wrhen  the  Ego  is  passing  outward 
to  the  Heaven  World  it  has  in  its  desire  body  pictures  of 
the  evil  acts  it  has  committed.  These  pictures  are  formed 
also  of  coarse  desire  stuff,  because  they  were  generated  by 
the  passions  of  the  man  at  the  time  he  committed  the  evil 
act  which  they  depict,  and  the  centrifugal  force  of  repul- 
sion seeks  to  expel  them  from  his  makeup.  It  is  the 
process  of  tearing  them  out  that  causes  the  pain  he  feels. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Ego  passes  through  this 
region  on  its  way  to  rebirth,  the  centripetal  force  of  attrac- 
tion brings  new  desire  matter  into  its  makeup.  Then  it  is 
not  Purgatory  at  all ;  neither  is  it  Purgatory  for  the  Invis- 
ible Helpers  who  go  among  the  spirits  in  prison  endeavor- 
ing to  aid  them  in  learning  the  lessons  that  shall  make 
them  better  men  and  women.  It  is  only  where  evil  has  to 
be  expurgated  by  a  spirit  that  it  feels  this  region  as  being 
purgative. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  145 

QUESTION  No.  72. 

How  can  you  believe  in  the  theory  of  reincarnation  that 
we  come  back  here  in  the  body  of  an  animal?  Is  it  not 
much  more  beautiful  to  believe  in  the  Christian  doctrine 
that  we  go  to  heaven  with  God  and  the  angels? 


Answer:  The  writer  has  never  advocated  the  views  at- 
tributed to  him  by  the  inquirer,  who,  evidently,  has  not 
studied  the  question  at  all.  There  is  a  doctrine  among 
some  of  the  most  ignorant  tribes  in  the  East  teaching  the 
theory  of  transmigration,  that  the  human  spirit  may  incar- 
nate in  the  bodies  of  animals,  but  that  is  very  different 
from  the  doctrine  of  leincarnation,  which  holds  that  man 
is  an  evolving  being  progressing  through  the  school  of  life 
by  means  of  repeated  embodiments  in  bodies  of  gradually 
improving  texture.  The  Christ  said  to  his  disciples,  "Be 
ye  therefore  perfect,  as  the  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect." 
That  was  a  definite  command,  and  the  Christ  would  never 
have  given  it  if  it  were  unattainable;  but  we  all  know 
that  we  cannot  reach  that  goal  in  one  short  life.  Given 
time  and  the  opportunities  afforded  by  repeated  embodi- 
ments and  changed  environments,  however,  we  shall  some 
time  accomplish  the  work  of  perfecting  ourselves. 

There  is  no  authority  in  any  of  the  sacred  writings  of 
the  East,  even,  for  such  a  belief  as  transmigration.  The 
only  semblance  to  such  an  idea  is  found  in  the  Kathopani- 
shad,  Chapter  5,  Verse  9,  which  says  that  some  of  the 
souls,  according  to  their  deeds,  return  to  the  womb  to  be 
reborn,  but  others  go  into  the  motionless.  Meaning,  in 
the  opinion  of  some,  that  they  may  reincarnate  down  even 
as  low  as  the  mineral  kingdom.  The  Sanskrit  word  used 


146  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

in  that  place  is  sthanu,  which  also  means  a  pillar,  and  read 
thus  it  gives  the  same  idea  as  the  passage  in  Revelation 
which  says :  "To  him  that  overcometh,  I  will  make  a  pillar 
in  the  house  of  my  God,  thence  he  shall  no  more  go  out." 
When  humanity  has  reached  perfection,  there  will  come  a 
time  when  they  will  no  more  be  tied  to  the  wheel  of  births 
and  deaths,  but  will  remain  in  the  Invisible  Worlds  to 
work  thence  for  the  upliftment  of  other  beings. 

Besides,  transmigration  is  an  impossibility  in  nature, 
because  there  is  in  every  human  body  an  indwelling  indi- 
vidual spirit,  while  each  tribe  of  animals  is  ruled  by  a  com- 
mon, or  group  spirit,  of  which  these  animals  all  form  a 
part,  and  no  self-conscious  Ego  can  enter  into  a  body  ruled 
by  another. 

The  inquirer  asks  whether  it  is  not  much  more  beautiful 
to  believe  in  a  heaven  with  God  and  the  angels?  Perhaps 
it  is,  but  we  are  not  concerned  so  much  with  that  which 
may  be  pleasing  to  our  passing  fancy  as  with  finding  the 
Truth,  and  although  this  doctrine  of  reincarnation  is  some- 
times derided  by  wiseacres  as  impossible  and  a  heathen 
doctrine,  it  is  really  not  a  question  of  whether  it  is  heathen 
or  not  either.  When  we  deal  with  a  mathematical  prob- 
lem, we  do  not  care  who  first  solved  it ;  all  we  are  concerned 
with  is,  has  it  been  properly  solved?  Likewise  with  this 
doctrine,  no  matter  who  taught  it  first,  it  is  the  only  one 
that  will  solve  all  the  problems  of  life  in  a  rational  manner, 
whereas,  the  theory  that  a  man  who  perhaps  never  cared 
about  music  and  did  not  know  the  first  thing  about  har- 
mony, immediately  after  he  has  died  develops  an  insatiable 
passion  for  music  and  will  remain  content  to  toot  in  a 
trumpet  or  strum  on  a  harp  for  all  eternity,  is  rather  more 
ridiculous. 


SECTION  IV 

Questions  concerning 
THE 

BIBLE  TEACHINGS 


QUESTION  Xo.  73. 

Why  is  it  that  every  sect  interprets  the  Bible  differently 
and  that  each  one  gets  an  apparent  vindication  for  its  ideas 
from  that  book? 


Answer:  That  question,  if  asked  by  a  skeptic,  affords 
him  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction,  for  he  sees  in  it  a  vindica- 
tion for  his  idea  that  all  sects  are  wrong  in  their  beliefs  and 
that  the  Bible  is  a  conglomerate  mass  of  nonsense,  while 
in  fact  the  case  is  very  much  the  other  way.  We  do  not 
contend  for  the  Divinity  of  this  Book  or  hold  that  it  is  the 
Word  of  God  from  cover  to  cover;  we  recognize  the  fact 
that  it  is  a  poor  translation  of  the  originals  and  that  there 
are  many  interpolations  which  have  been  inserted  at  dif- 
ferent times  to  support  various  ideas,  but,  nevertheless,  the 
very  fact  that  so  much  truth  has  been  massed  into  such 
a  small  compass  is  a  source  of  constant  wonder  to  the 
occultist,  who  knows  what  that  Book  really  is  and  has  the 
key  to  its  meaning. 

There  is  one  fact  that  the  skeptic  fails  to  see.  His  idea 
is  that  if  a  certain  interpretation  is  true,  all  other  inter- 
pretations must  necessarily  be  false.  That  idea  is  most 
emphatically  wrong.  Truth  is  many  sided  and  eternal ; 
the  quest  for  truth  must  also  be  all  embracing  and  never 
ending.  We  may  liken  truth  to  a  mountain,  and  the  vari- 
ous interpretations  of  that  truth  to  different  paths  leading 

149 


150  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

up  to  the  summit.  Many  people  are  traveling  along  all 
of  these  paths  and  every  one  thinks  his  path  is  the  only  one 
while  he  is  at  the  bottom ;  he  sees  only  a  small  part  of  the 
mountain  and  may  therefore  be  justified  in  crying  to  his 
brothers,  "You  are  wrong;  come  over  in  my  path;  this  is 
the  onl}v  one  that  leads  to  the  top."  But  as  all  these 
people  progress*  upward,  they  shall  see  that  the  paths  con- 
verge at  the  top  and  that  they  are  all  one  in  the  ultimate. 
It  may  be  said  most  emphatically  that  no  system  of 
thought  which  has  ever  been  able  to  attract  and  hold  thd 
attention  of  a  large  number  of  people  for  a  considerable 
time  has  been  without  its  truth ;  and  whether  we  perceive 
it  or  not,  there  is  in  every  sect  the  kernel  of  divine  teaching 
which  is  gradually  bringing  them  upward  toward  the  top 
of  the  mountain,  and  therefore  we  should  practice  the 
utmost  toleration  for  every  belief. 


QUESTION  No.  74. 
What  is  meant  by  the  second  aspect  of  the  Triune  God? 


Answer:  God  is  one,  just  as  the  light  is  one,  but,  as  the 
light  passing  through  the  atmosphere  is  refracted  into  three 
primary  colors — red,  yellow  and  blue — so  also  God,  when 
he  manifests  or  reflects  himself  in  nature,  is  threefold  in 
his  manifestation.  There  is  first  the  Creative  principle, 
next  there  is  the  Preservative  principle,  and  in  the  third 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  151 

place  there  is  the  principle  of  Destruction  of  the  forms 
which  have  been  created,  preserved  for  a  time  while  useful, 
then  to  be  destroyed  in  order  that  the  material  from  which 
they  were  constructed  may  be  used  in  the  building  of  new 
forms. 

These  three  principles  of  God  have  been  called  by  dif- 
ferent names  in  different  religions,  and  much  ink  and 
many  goosequills  have  been  used  in  latter  years  to  defend 
or  decry  the  idea  of  a  Trinity,  though  that  ought  to  be 
manifest  to  anyone  who  will  look  about  him  in  nature  with 
a  thoughtful  mind.  In  the  Western  World,  we  have  been 
used  to  calling  the  Second  Aspect  of  the  Triune  God,  the 
unified  preserving  principle,  Christ;  and  it  is  very  appro- 
priate in  a  certain  sense,  because  the  Christ  came  as  the 
teacher  of  Love  and  Universal  Brotherhood  which  was  to 
supersede  nations  that  war  against  one  another,  and  He 
Himself  said  that  there  was  a  still  higher  stage  when  the 
kingdom  He  was  to  establish  should  be  delivered  to  the 
Father  and  all  should  be  one  in  Him. 


QUESTION  No.  75. 
Are  the  Recording  Angels  individual  Beings? 


Answer:    Yes,  they  are  mighty  Individualities,  the  am- 
bassadors of  the  Great  Planetary  Angels,  and  as  such  they 


152  ROSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

are  concerned  in  the  birth  of  man,  helping  him  in  the  se- 
lection of  his  environment  and  allotting  to  each  life  the 
right  destiny  which  is  ready  to  be  worked  out  into  effects. 
They  guide  the  stellar  influences  so  that  they  affect  each 
one  in  such  a  way  as  to  facilitate  the  liquidation  of  his  past 
indebtedness  to  others,  helping  him,  also,  to  reap  the  benefit 
of  whatever  good  he  has  done  in  past  lives.  • 

In  this  the  Recording  Angels  are  helped  by  a  mighty 
host  of  agents  and  the  nature  spirits,  which  are  not  indi- 
vidualized yet,  but  work  under  the  direction  of  these  Great 
Beings  unconsciously,  much  as  the  animals  are  guided  by 
group  spirits. 


QUESTION  No.  76. 

Do  the  Angels  and  Archangels  watch  over  us  individually 
as  well  as  collectively  and  know  just  what  our  lives  are? 


Answer:  The  Lords  of  Mind,  which  Paul  calls  the 
"Powers  of  Darkness"  because  they  were  the  humanity  of 
the  dark  Saturn  period  when  the  universe  was  just  coming 
out  of  chaos,  work  only  with  man. 

The  Archangels,  who  were  human  in  the  fiery  Sun 
Period  where  the  universe  was  of  the  consistency  of  "desire 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  153 

stuff,"  work  now  as  the  helpers  of  the  group  spirits  of  the 
animals  and  as  race  spirits  for  humanity,  because  these 
classes  of  beings  have  a  desire  body. 

The  Angels,  who  were  ihe  humanity  of  the  Moon  Period, 
work  with  both  man,  animal  and  plant,  for  in  the  Moon 
Period  the  universe  was  of  the  consistency  of  "ether"  and 
the  vital  bodies  of  the  three  kingdoms  named  is  formed  of 
that  material.  The  Angels  are,  therefore,  properly  helpers 
in  the  vital  functions  such  as  assimilation,  growth  and 
propagation,  and  in  their  work  with  humanity  they  are 
family  spirits.  They  cause  the  increase  in  the  family,  in 
man's  cattle  and  in  the  yield  of  his  fields. 

Man,  himself,  who  is  a  little  lower  than  the  Angels, 
works  with  the  minerals,  which  are  found  in  the  chemical 
region  of  the  Physical  World,  composed  of  the  gases,  liquids 
and  solids.  He  is  to  the  minerals  what  the  Higher  Beings 
are  to  us.  He  is  gradually  waking  them  to  life  by  mold- 
ing them  into  houses,  bridges,  railways,  etc. 

In  a  future  incarnation  of  the  earth,  when  these  min- 
erals have  become  plant-like,  man  will  have  learned  to  work 
with  life  and  will  then  be  in  a  similar  position  with  regard! 
to  them  as  the  Angels  occupy  now  with  regard  to  us.  Thus 
there  is  endless  progression,  the  higher  always  helping  the 
less  evolved,  until  all  shall  have  reached  perfection. 

Answering  the  question  more  specifically,  we  may  say 
that  the  Archangels  work  with  the  nations  and  the  races 
of  the  earth,  while  the  Angels  are  concerned  particularly 
with  the  families  and  the  individuals  in  the  family.  The 
"Guardian  Angel,"  however,  is  not  exactly  an  entity  from 
a  higher  evolution,  but  is  rather  the  personified  embodi- 
ment of  our  good  deeds  in  all  our  past  lives,  which,  though 
unseen  by  us,  is  still  with  us  always,  impelling  us  toward 
right  action  and  the  doing  of  more  good. 


154  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  77. 

Have  Angels  wings  as  shown  in  pictures? 


Answer:  No;  none  of  them  have  such  bird  wings  as 
they  are  shown  to  have  in  pictures,  but  there  are  some 
classes  of  Beings  in  the  Spirit  World  which  have  wing-like 
appendages.  These,  however,  are  not  for  the  purpose  of 
flying  or  moving  through  space,  but  are  currents  of  out- 
welling  force  that  may  be  hurled  in  one  direction  or  an- 
other, as  we  use  our  arms  and  limbs.  Thus  an  Archangel 
who  is  impelling  the  armies  of  two  nations  to  battle  may 
send  out  a  current  .of  spiritual  force  in  one  direction,  numb- 
ing the  soldiers  of  one  army  with  fear,  and  may  send  an- 
other force  to  imbue  the  opposing  army  with  added  cour- 
age, thus  influencing  the  battle  in  a  manner  little  dreamed 
of  by  the  contestants. 


QUESTION  No.  78. 

Do  the  Rosicrucians  accept  the  Bible  as  the  "Word  of 
God"  from  cover  to  covert 

'Answer:  Certainly  not,  and  more  particularly  not  in  the 
extremely  narrow  interpretation  of  some  people  who  think 
that  the  book  we  now  have  with  us  is  the  only  genuine  one 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERG 

ever  given  to  humanity.  At  most,  it  could  only  be  one  of 
the  books  of  God,  for  there  are  many  other  sacred  writings 
which  have  a  claim  to  recognition  and  cannot  be  ruled  out 
of  court  by  a  few  wiseacres  such  as  those  who  have 
delegated  the  so-called  apocryphal  books  to  the  literary 
scrap  heap. 

In  the  first  place,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  Old 
Testament  was  written  in  Hebrew  at  various  times  and  by 
numerous  writers,  and  that  no  collection  of  these  writings 
was  made  prior  to  Ezra.  Of  these  Hebrew  writings,  there 
is  not  now  a  single  scrap  in  existence.  Even  as  long  ago 
as  280  B.  C.  the  Hebrew  language  had  been  abandoned,  so 
far  as  scriptural  writing  was  concerned,  and  the  Sep- 
tuagint,  or  Greek  Translation,  was  in  general  use.  That 
was  the  only  Bible  in  existence  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of 
Christ.  Later  some  of  the  Hebrew  writings  have  been  col- 
lected and  collated  by  the  Masoretes,  a  sect  which  existed 
about  700  A.  D.  This  is  the  best  and  most  accurate  text. 

The  English  translation,  most  in  use  today,  is  the  King 
James  Version,  but  His  Majesty  was  not  so  much  after 
accuracy  in  translation  as  after  peace,  and  the  act  which 
authorized  the  translation  of  the  Bible  prohibited  the 
translators  from  translating  any  passages  in  such  a  way 
that  it  would  interfere  with  existing  beliefs.  This  was 
done  to  avoid  any  uprising  or  dissension  in  his  kingdom, 
and  of  the  forty-seven  translators,  only  three  were  Hebrew 
scholars  and  two  of  them  died  before  the  Psalms  had  been 
translated.  A  number  of  the  books  were  thrown  aside  as 
apocryphal,  and  altogether  words  were  wrenched  out  of 
their  original  meaning  to  conform  to  the  superstition  of 
the  age.  Martin  Luther,  in  Germany,  translated  from  the 
Latin  text  which  had  itself  been  translated  from  the  Greek 
and  thus  the  chances  of  conveying  wrong  meanings. have 


156  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

been  enhanced  in  many  and  various  ways.  Add  to  this  that 
in  the  old  style  Hebrew  vowel  points  are  omitted  and  there 
is  no  division  into  words,  so  that  by  inserting  vowel  points 
in  different  ways,  words  and  sentences  of  entirely  different 
meanings  may  be  obtained  from  almost  any  sentence.  In 
view  of  these  facts  it  is  evident  that  the  chances  of  our 
getting  an  accurate  version  of  what  was  originally  written 
were  small  indeed. 

Moreover,  it  was  not  intended  by  the  original  writers  to 
make  the  Bible  an  open  "Book  of  God,"  as  can  well  be  seen 
by  the  following  quotation  from  the  Zohar :  "Woe  to  the 
man  who  sees  in  the  Thorah  (the  law — the  Bible)  only 
simple  recitals  and  ordinary  words,  because  if  in  truth  it 
contained  only  these,  we  would  even  today  be  able  to  com- 
pose a  Thorah  more  worthy  of  admiration.  But  it  is  not 
so ;  each  word  in  the  Thorah  contains  an  elevated  meaning 
and  a  sublime  mystery  .  .  .  The  recitals  of  the  Thorah 
are  the  vestments  of  the  Thorah  .  .  .  Woe  to  him  who 
tanes  this  vestment  of  the  Thorah  for  the  Thorah  itself 
.  .  .  The  simple  take  notice  of  the  garments  and  re- 
citals of  the  Thorah  alone ;  they  know  no  other  thing,  they 
see  not  that  which  is  concealed  under  the  vestment;  the 
more  instructed  men  do  not  pay  attention  to  the  vestment, 
but  to  that  which  it  envelops"  .  .  . 

In  other  words,  they  pay  no  attention  to  the  letter,  but 
take  only  the  spirit.  And,  as  in  a  field  sown  with  potatoes 
there  are  not  only  these  vegetables,  but  also  the  soil  in  which 
they  are  hidden,  so  in  the  Bible  the  pearls  of  occult  truth 
are  hidden  in  what  are  often  hideous  garments.  The  occult- 
ist who  has  fitted  himself  to  possess  these  pearls  has  re- 
ceived the  key,  and  sees  them  plainly.  To  others  they 
remain  obscure  until  they  also  have  worked  for  that  key. 
»Thus,  while  the  story  of  the  wanderings  of  the  children  of 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  157 

Israel  and  the  dealings  of  a  certain  God  with  them  are 
partially  true,  the/o  is  also  a  spiritual  significance  that  is 
far  more  important  than  that  material  history.  Even 
though  the  Gospels  contained  the  great  outlines  of  the  life 
of  an  individual  called  Jesus,  they  are  formulae  of  initia- 
tion showing  the  experiences  which  everyone  must  event- 
ually pass  through  on  the  way  to  the  truth  and  the  life. 

This  path  was  foreseen  by  the  various  persons  who  wrote 
the  Bible  and  who  were  thus  prophets  and  seers,  but  only 
in  so  far  as  that  was  possible  at  their  time  and  age.  A 
new  era  will  require  a  new  Bible,  a  new  word. 


QUESTION  No  79. 

What  is  the  viewpoint  of  the  Rosicrucians  concerning  the 
creation  of  the  world  in  seven  days? 

Answer:  There  are  two  creation  stories  in  the  Bible. 
One  commences  with  the  first  verse  of  the  opening  chapter 
and  ends  with  the  third  verse  of  the  second  chapter  of 
Genesis.  Another  account  commences  with  the  fourth 
verse. 

These  two  creation  stories  seem  to  be  greatly  at  variance 
in  several  particular?.  The  first  account  states  that  in  the 
beginning  the  earth  r/as  covered  with  water;  the 


158  KOSICRTJCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

avers  that  it  was  dry.  The  first  informs  us  that  man  was 
created  last ;  the  second  version  says  he  was  the  first  crea- 
ture, etc.  These  discrepancies  seem  to  be  irreconcilable,  and 
afford  the  skeptic  great  satisfaction  when  he  recounts  them 
with  a  smile  of  supercilious  pity  for  the  poor  ignorant  fools 
who  believe  such  silly  nonsense.  Yet  the  two  accounts  are 
not  really  incongruous,  they  are  complementary  and  in 
harmony  with  scientific  facts.  The  first  account  deals  with 
the  genesis  of  form,  the  second  chapter  with  the  evolution 
of  consciousness.  The  human  form  as  at  present  constituted 
is  the  chef-d'oeuvre  of  evolution,  built  upon  the  basis  of - 
all  lower  forms  which  have  gone  before.  The  Life  which 
is  man,  the  thinker,  is  without  beginning  or  end,  eternal  as 
God  Himself,  and  that  Life  was  here  before  all  forms,  as 
told  by  the  second  creation  story. 

Eegarding  the  time  in  which  this  creation  of  form  is 
said  to  have  taken  place,  the  Rosicrucians  do  not  teach  or 
believe  that  it  was  accomplished  in  seven  days  of  twenty- 
four  hours  each,  but  in  our  scheme  of  manifestation  seven 
great  transformations  of  the  earth  are  necessary  to  facilitate 
the  full  evolution  of  self-consciousness  and  soul  power  by 
the  evolving  spirits.  Thiee  and  one-half  of  these  periods 
have  been  spent  in  obtaining  vehicles;  the  remainder  will 
be  required  for  the  evolution  of  consciousness. 

The  opening  verse  of  the  Bible  states  that  in  the  begin- 
ning the  earth  was  dark  and  without  definite  form.  That 
was  in  the  Saturn  Period,  when  the  incipient  firemist  was 
forming  from  the  root  substance  of  space. 

The  third  verse  informs  us  that  God  said  "Let  there  be 
Light,"  a  passage  which  has  been  jeered  at  as  showing  the 
ignorance  of  the  authors  and  the  inconsistency  of  the  ac- 
count with  scientific  facts ;  for,  says  the  scoffer.  "When  the 
sun  and  moon  were  not  created  till  the  fourth  day,  how 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  159 

could  there  be  light  previous  to  that  time  ?  We  are  not 
dealing  with  the  world  as  it  is  today,  a  solid  mass.  That, 
of  course,  would  be  dark  without  an  outside  source  of  light, 
but  at  that  time  the  earth  was  a  world  in  the  making,  and 
according  to  the  nebular  theory  there  must  first  be  the  stage 
of  dark  heat  to  which  we  have  given  the  name  Saturn 
Period.  Later  the  mist  is  ignited  and  luminous;  the  light 
is  within  and  is  not  dependent  upon  an  exterior  sun  and 
moon.  This  second  stage  in  the  development  of  our  planet 
is  called  the  Sun  Period. 

Next  we  are  told  that  God  said,  "Let  there  be  'an  ex- 
pansion' in  the  waters  to  divide  the  water  from  the  w^ter." 
The  word  here  rendered  "expansion"  is  translated  "fir- 
mament" in  the  authorized  version,  but  we  use  the  Maso- 
retic  text,  which  was  translated  by  translators  of  knowledge, 
who  were  unrestricted  by  a  royal  edict  such  as  that  which 
hampered  King  James's  translators.  The  use  of  the  term 
"expansion"  harmonizes  the  Bible  with  the  nebular  theory, 
for,  when  a  firemist  appears  in  space  moisture  is  generated 
by  the  contact  of  this  heated  mass  with  the  surrounding 
space,  which  is  cold.  This  moisture  becomes  heated  and 
expands  into  st  earn  which  rushes  outward  from  the  fiery 
core,  is  there  cooled,  and  condensed,  and  gravitates  back  to 
the  source  of  heat.  Thus  the  expansion  in  the  waters 
divided  the  water  from  the  water,  the  dense  moisture  re- 
maining nearest  the  fiery  core  and  the  steam  outside.  This 
stage  in  the  consolidation  of  the  earth  is  called  the  Moon 
Period. 

The  continual  boiling  of  the  water  surrounding  the  fiery 
core  finally  caused  an  incrustation  and  dry  land  appeared. 
We  are  told  that  "God  called  the  dry  land  Earth." 

During  the  first  part  of  the  present  Period  the  earth  was 


160  EOSICRUCTAN  PHILOSOPHY 

as  dark  as  in  the  Saturn  Period.  Only  mineral  substances 
existed  them.  This  stage  is  called  the  Polarian  Epoch. 

The  fiery  Sun  Period  finds  its  replica  in  the  Hyperborean 
Epoch,  which  is  described  in  verses  11-19  as  the  time  when 
plants  were  generated,  and  the  earth  became  a  planet 
lighted  from  without  by  sun  and  moon.  This  ends  the  work 
described  as  having  been  performed  on  the  fourth  great  day 
in  the  development  of  our  earth. 

In  the  Lemurian  Epoch  we  have  a  recapitulation  of  con- 
ditions during  the  Moon  Period,  a  fiery  core  and  an 
atmosphere  of  fire  fog,  also  the  genesis  of  the  lower  grades 
of  animals,  described  in  the  Bible  story  as  the  work  of  the 
fifth  day. 

In  the  Atlantean  Epoch  the  vertebrate  mammals  and  man 
were  formed,  as  described  under  the  heading  of  the  sixth 
day,  and  when  man  became  a  reasoning  being  in  the 
present  Aryan  Epoch,  the  Gods  rested  to  let  him  work  out 
his  own  salvation  under  the  twin  laws  of  Kebirth  and 
Causation. 


QUESTION  No.  80. 

The  Bible  teaches  the  immortality  of  the  soul  in  an 
authoritative  manner.  The  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  teaches 
the  same  professedly  by  appealing  to  reason.  Are  there  no 
positive  proofs  of  immortality? 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  161 

•  Answer:  The  inquirer  is  mistaken  when  he  says  that  the 
Bible  teaches  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  There  is  not  a 
single  mention  of  the  word  immortality  or  heaven  in  the 
sense  of  a  possession  of  man  in  the  Old  Testament.  There 
at  is  explicitly  stated  that  "Heaven,  even  the  heavens  are 
the  Lord's,  but  the  earth  has  he  given  to  the  children  of 
men";  Psalms  115,  16th  verse.  It  is  explicitly  taught 
that  "the  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."  If  the  soul  were 
immortal  that  would  be  an  impossibility.  In  the  New 
Testament  the  word  "immortal"  or  "immortality"  is  only 
used  six  times.  It  is  designated  as  something  to  be  striven 
for,  or  something  which  is  an  attribute  of  God. 

So  far  as  the  spirit  is  concerned,  howe?er,  the  case  is 
different,  and  even  where  that  is  the  theme,  the  word  im- 
mortal is  not  used.  Immortality  is  implied  in  the  same 
way  that  the  doctrine  of  rebirth  is  implied  in  so  many 
passages,  but  even  the  doctrine  of  rebirth  has  the  advantage 
of  the  doctrine  of  immortality  of  the  human  spirit,  for  the 
doctrine  of  rebirth  was  taught  definitely  at  least  once  in 
Matthew  11 :47,  where  the  Christ  said  of  John  the  Baptist, 
"This  is  Elijah."  In  this  teaching  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality was  again  implied,  for  if  the  spirit  Elijah  was 
reborn  as  John  the  Baptist  he  must  have  survived  bodily 
death.  The  teaching  of  immortality  was  at  that  time  one 
of  the  mystery  teachings,  and  even  to  this  day  it  can  hardly 
be  received  until  a  man  has  entered  the  path  of  initiation 
and  there  sees  for  himself  the  continuity  of  life. 

It  may  be  stated,  however,  in  answer  to  the  question, 
that  everything  hinges  upon  what  is  meant  by  "positive 
proof"  and  what  the  qualifications  of  the  person  are  who 
asks  for  the  proof  to  judge  of  these  proofs?  We  cannot 
prove  a  problem  in  trigonometry  to  an  infant,  but  if  the 
infant  is  given  time  to  grow  and  is  properly  taught  the 


162  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

preliminaries,  it  will  be  easy  to  prove  the  problem.  Neither 
ran  we  prove  the  existence  of  color  and  light  to  a  man  who 
was  born  blind ;  they  are  facts  which  he  cannot  appreciate, 
because  lacking  in  the  requisite  faculty.  But  if  he  acquires 
the  faculty  of  sight  by  an  operation,  it  will  be  unneces- 
sary to  prove  these  facts  to  him,  he  will  then  see  their 
verity.  For  similar  reasons  no  one  can  appreciate  proofs 
of  the  immortality  of  the  spirit  until  he  has  fitted  himself 
to  see  the  spirit;  then  it  will  be  easy  for  him  to  obtain 
positive  proof  of  the  immortality  of  spirit,  its  existence 
prior  to  birth  and  persistence  after  death.  Until  he  has 
thus  qualified  himself,  he  must  be  satisfied  with  reasonable 
inferences  such  as  may  be  obtained  in  many  ways. 


QUESTION  No.  81. 

Is  there  any  authority  in  the  Bible  for  the  theory  of  re- 
birth? 


Answer:  Yes,  there  is  plenty  of  authoritj*,  although  it 
is  only  taught  directly  in  one  place.  The  Jewish  priests 
believed  in  the  theory  of  rebirth,  or  they  would  not  have 
sent  to  ask  John  the  Baptist  "Art  thou  Elijah?"  as  it  is 
recorded  in  the  first  Chapter  of  John  in  tho  twenty-first 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  163 

verse;  and  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  we  have  the  words 
of  Christ  concerning  John  the  Baptist  which  are  unambig- 
uous and  unequivocal.  He  said,  "This  is  Elijah."  Also  on 
the  later  occasion,  at  the  time  when  they  had  been  upon 
the  Mount  of  Transfiguration,  the  Christ  said,  "Elijah  has 
come  and  they  have  done  to  him  as  they  listed,"  and  we 
are  told  that  the  disciples  "knew  He  was  speaking  of  John" 
who  had  then  been  beheaded  by  Herod. 

In  Matthew,  the  16th  chapter,  14th  verse,  He  is  asking 
His  disciples  "Who  do  the  people  say  I  am?"  and  the 
answer  which  they  give  Him  is  "Some  say  that  you  are  John 
the  Baptist,  others  say  that  you  are  Elijah,  and  again  others 
say  that  you  are  Jeremiah  or  one  of  the  Prophets."  It  is 
noteworthy  that  the  Christ  did  not  contradict  them  at  all, 
for  He  was  a  teacher,  and  if  they  had  entertained  a  wrong 
idea  concerning  the  doctrine  of  rebirth,  it  would  have  been 
His  undoubted  duty  to  set  them  right.  But  He  did  not  do 
that.  He  moreover  taught  it  directly,  as  per  the  above 
passage. 

There  are  also  cases  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  where  a 
person  has  been  chosen  for  a  certain  work  before  his  birth. 
An  Angel  foretold  the  coming  of  Samson  and  his  mis- 
sion— to  slay  the  Philistines.  The  Lord  said  to  the  prophet 
Jeremiah,  "Before  thou  earnest  out  of  the  womb,  I  sancti- 
fied thee  and  I  ordained  thee  a  prophet  unto  the  nations." 
John  and  Jesus  had  their  missions  allotted  to  them  before 
they  were  born.  A  person  is  chosen  for  a  mission  because 
of  a  special  fitness.  Proficiency  presupposes  practice  and 
practice  prior  to  birth  must  have  been  in  a  previous  life. 
Thus  the  doctrine  of  rebirth  is  also  taught  by  implication  in 
the  cases  cited. 


164  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  82. 

According  to  the  Bible  only  man  was  given  a  soul.    Why 
do  you  then  say  that  the  animals  have  a  group  spirit? 


Answer:  In  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  verse  20,  we 
are  told  that  God  said :  "Let  the  water  bring  forth 
abundantly  the  moving  creature  that  has  life."  The  word 
used  in  Hebrew  is  nephesh,  which  means  "breath."  That 
word  is  also  used  in  the  second  chapter,  verse  7,  where  it  is 
said  that  "The  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life 
(nephesh),  and  man  became  a  'nephesh  chayim,'  a  breath- 
ing creature."  Not  a  living  soul,  as  there  translated.  The 
translation  of  King  James  has  been  modified  by  people  who 
had  a  little  more  regard  for  the  truth  than  for  preconceived 
ideas ;  they  have  consented  to  put  the  word  "soul"  in  the 
margin  as  an  alternative  reading  of  the  word  in  chapter  1, 
verse  20,  where  the  creation  of  the  animals  is  recorded,  so 
that  even  in  the  Bibles  of  today,  it  is  admitted  that  animals 
have  a  soul. 

This  translation  is  not  correct,  however;  nephesh  means 
breath  and  not  soul;  the  Hebrew  word  for  soul  is 
neshamah.  Soul  is  not  synonymous  with  spirit,  which  is 
called  Ruach,  so  that  Genesis  does  not  mention  the  spirit  of 
either  man  or  animal,  for  spirit  has  no  genesis,  IT  is.  The 
forms  of  animal  and  man  which  are  sustained  by  breath 
had  a  beginning  and  that  is  what  Genesis  records.  That 
idea  is  perfectly  in  line  with  the  words  of  Solomon  in 
Ecclesiastes  3:19,  where  we  are  told  that  (so  far  as  the 
body  formed  of  the  dust  is  concerned)  man  has  no  pre- 
eminence above  the  beast,  for  as  one  dieth  so  dieth  the 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  165 

other;  they  have  all  one  breath  (nephesh)  and  as  one  dieth 
so  dieth  the  other.  All  go  unto  one  place  (namely,  the 
Desire  World). 

If  the  inquirer  accepts  only  the  English  word  and  version 
of  the  Bible,  as  if  that  book  had  been  written  directly  in 
our  language,  it  would  seem  fair  to  ask:  If  man  obtained 
his  soul  as  described  in  the  Bible,  where  did  .woman  receive 
her  soul ;  or  is  she  without  a  soul  ? 


QUESTION  Xo.  83. 
Is  it  true  that  Eve  was  taken  out  of  Adam's  side? 


Answer:  Among  the  forty-seven  translators  of  King 
James's  Bible  only  three  understood  Hebrew  and  two  of 
them  died  before  the  Psalms  had  been  translated.  Besides, 
in  the  Hebrew  language,  particularly  the  old  style  writing, 
the  vowel  points  are  never  put  in,  and  thus  a  wprd  may  be 
given  different  meanings,  according  to  the  way  these  points 
are  entered.  In  the  case  of  the  story  of  Adam's  rib,  the 
word  translated  "rib"  when  pointed  in  one  way  reads  tsad, 
which  really  means  rib,  but  pointed  another  way  it  reads 
tscla,"whieh.-  means  side.  The  occult  teaching  concerning 
the  development  of  the  earth  and  man  states  that  there  was 


166  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

a  time  when  man  was  like  the  God  or  Elohim  who  created 
him,  in  one  particular — sex.  He  was  both  male  and  female, 
a  hermaphrodite,  capable  of  generating  another  being  from 
himself.  Later  it  became  necessary  to  his  further  evolution 
that  a  brain  should  be  evolved,  and  whereas  he  had  pre- 
viously sent  out  from  himself  the  double  creative  force, 
positive  and  negative,  half  of  that  was  then  retained  for 
the  purpose  of  building  a  brain,  a  larynx,  and  a  nervous 
system,  as  organs  of  thought  and  a  keyboard  whereby  the 
spirit  might  manipulate  its  organism  and  express  itself 
vocally.  Some  of  the  spirits  retain  the  positive  creative 
force  and  send  out  only  the  negative,  or  female  force,  while 
others  retain  the  female  or  negative  force  and  send  out 
the  positive.  Thus  it  may  be  said  that  God  took  away  from 
them  one  side  of  their  being,  but  not  the  rib.  This  reading 
of  the  word  has  as  good  a  claim  to  recognition  as  the 
translation  rib,  and  also  has  the  further  merit  that  it  helps 
to  explain  an  otherwise  unexplainable  fact. 


QUESTION  No.  84. 

//  God  made  man  in  His  image  and  likeness,  supposedly 
perfect,  why  were  the  different  epochs  prior  to  the  Fall  of 
Adam  and  Eve  necessary1? 


Answer:     The  inquirer  is  laboring  under  a  misapprehen- 
sion.    The  Bible  says  that  God  saw  his  work,  and  that  it 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  167 

was  "good"  but  not  perfect.  Had  it  been  perfect,  there 
would  have  been  nothing  further  to  do,  and  evolution  would 
have  been  superfluous.  The  human  race  did  not  become 
definitely  human  until  the  latter  pait  of  the  Lemurian 
Epoch  when  the  spirit  commenced  to  draw  into  the 
bodies.  The  humanity  of  that  time,  Adam  and  Eve, 
were  very  different  from  our  present  day  humanity.  They 
were  also  products  of  evolution,  for  there  is  no  instantaneous 
creation.  These  beings  had  progressed  through  stages  of 
plant-like  and  animal-like  development  from  the  mineral 
kingdom  wherein  they  started,  and  it  was  not  a  single  pair, 
as  is  usually  understood  by  orthodox  religionists,  but  a 
humanity  that  was  both  male  and  female  at  the  time 
mentioned  in  the  Bible.  It  is  said  that  male  and  female 
created  He  them ;  moreover,  it  was  not  the  first  time  that 
man  had  been  upon  the  earth,  or  that  the  earth  had  been 
peopled,  as  can  be  seen  from- Genesis  1 :28,  where  they  were 
commanded  to  go  out  and  RE-plenish  the  earth,  showing 
that  the  earth  had  been  the  abode  of  certain  other  beings 
previous  to  the  advent  of  those  which  are  called  Adam  and 
Eve.  Josephus  says  that  Adam  means  "red  earth"  and 
the  Hebrew  "Admali"  from  which  Adam  is  derived,  means 
"firm  ground";  that  describes  the  state  very  well.  Adm 
(as  it  is  given  in  the  Hebrew  text),  did  not  come  upon  the 
earth  until  it  had  solidified  and  become  firm,  yet  he  came 
before  the  earth  had  become  properly  cooled  as  it  is  now, 
and  so  the  earth  was  really  in  a  red  and  fiery  state  at  that 
time.  He  had  been  here  before.  During  the  earlier  Epochs 
before  the  Lemurian,  the  spirits  hovered  over  the  fiery 
earth  and  helped  to  form  and  mold  it  as  it  is  now.  The 
human  spirits  were  at  that  time  learning  lessons  with  which 
we  have  no  present  concern.  We  were  unconscious  at  that 
time,  but  did  the  work  just  as  well  as,  for  instance,  our 


168  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

digestive  organs  perform  the  chemical  operations  necessary 
to  digestion  and  assimilation  although  we  are  unaware  of 
these  processes  in  our  conscious  mind.  It  must  be  plain, 
however,  that  as  the  work  of  children  in  the  kindergarten 
and  grammar  school  is  the  all  important  foundation  for  the 
later  teachings  of  high  school  and  college,  so  were  the 
earlier  epochs  the  foundation  stones  for  our  present  condi- 
tions. They  were  as  necessary  as  it  is  to  learn  the  alphabet 
before  we  attempt  to  read. 


QUESTION  No.  85. 

What  was  the  sin  or  fall  in  Eden? 


Answer:  When  the  earth  came  out  of  chaos,  it  was  at 
first  in  the  dark  red  stage  known  as  the  Polarian  Epoch. 
There  humanity  first  evolved  a  dense  body,  not  at  all  like 
our  present  vehicle,  of  course.  When  the  condition  of  the 
earth  became  fiery,  as  in  the  Hyperborean  Epoch,  the  vital 
l>ody  was  added  and  man  became  plant-like,  that  is  to  say, 
he  had  the  same  vehicles  as  our  plants  have  today,  and  also 
a  similar  consciousness,  or,  rather,  unconsciousness,  to  that 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  169 

which  we  have  in  dreamless  sleep  when  the  dense  and  vital 
bodies  are  left  upon  the  bed. 

At  that  time,  in  the  Hyperborean  Epoch,  the  body  of  man 
was  as  an  enormous  gas  bag,  floating  outside  the  fiery  earth, 
and  it  threw  off  plant-like  spores,  which  then  grew  and 
were  used  by  other  incoming  entities.  At  that  time  man 
was  double  sexed,  a  hermaphrodite. 

In  the  Lemurian  Epoch,  when  the  earth  had  somewhat 
cooled  and  islands  of  crust  had  begun  to  form  amid  boiling 
seas,  then  also  man's  body  had  somewhat  solidified  and  had 
become  more  like  the  body  we  see  today.  It  was  ape- 
like, a  short  trunk  with  enormous  arms  and  limbs,  the  heels 
projecting  backward  and  almost  no  head — at  least  the  upper 
part  of  the  head  was  nearly  entirely  wanting.  Man  lived 
in  the  atmosphere  of  steam  which  occultists  call  fire-fog, 
and  had  no  lungs,  but  breathed  by  means  of  tubes.  He 
had  a  bladder-like  organ  inside,  which  he  inflated  with 
heated  air  to  help  him  leap  enormous  chasms  when  volcanic 
eruptions  destroyed  the  land  upon  which  he  was  living. 
From  the  back  of  his  head  there  projected  an  organ  which 
has  now  been  drawn  into  the  head  and  is  called  by 
anatomists  the  pineal  gland,  or  the  third  eye,  although  it 
was  never  an  eye,  but  a  localized  organ  of  feeling.  The 
body  was  then  devoid  of  feeling,  but  when  man  came  too 
close  to  a  volcanic  crater,  the  heat  was  registered  by  this 
organ  to  warn  him  away  before  his  body  was  destroyed. 

At  that  time  the  body  had  already  so  far  solidified  that 
it  was  impossible .  for  man  to  continue  to  propagate  by 
spores,  and  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  evolve  an  organ 
of  thought,  a  brain.  The  creative  force  which  we  now  use 
to  build  railways,  steamships,  etc.,  in  the  outer  world,  was 
then  used  inwardly  for  the  building  of  organs.  Like  all 
forces  it  was  positive  and  negative.  One  pole  was  turned 


170  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

upward  to  build  the  brain,  leaving  the  other  pole  available 
for  the  creation  of  another  body.  Thus  man  was  no  longer 
a  complete  creative  unit.  Each  possessed  only  half  the 
creative  force,  and  it  was  therefore  necessary  for  him  to  seek 
his  complement  outside  himself. 

But  at  that  time,  "their  eyes  had  not  been  opened,"  and 
the  human  beings  of  that  age  were  unconscious  of  each  other 
in  the  Physical  World,  though  well  aware  and  awake  in  the 
Spiritual  World.  Therefore,  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Angels,  who  were  particularly  fitted  to  help  them  in  respect 
to  propagation,  they  were  herded  together  in  great  temples 
at  certain  times  of  the  year  when  the  lines  of  force  running 
between  the  planets  were  propitious,  and  there  the  creative 
act  was  performed  as  a  religious  sacrifice.  And  when  this 
primal  man  Adam  came  into  the  intimate  sexual  contact 
with  the  woman,  the  spirit  for  the  moment  pierced  the 
flesh  and  "Adam  knew  (01  became  aware  of)  his  wife;"'  he 
sensed  her  physically.  It  is  this  which  the  Bible  has 
recorded,  using  that  chaste  expression  all  through  its 
leaves,  for  we  are  told  that  "Elkanah  knew  his  wife  Hannah, 
and  she  bore  Samuel."  Even  in  the  New  Testament  where 
the  angel  comes  to  Mary  telling  her  that  she  is  to  be  the 
mother  of  the  Savior,  she  answers,  "How  shall  that  be  pos- 
sible seeing  I  know  not  a  man?" 

Sin  is  action  contrary  to  law,  and  while  humanity  prop- 
agated under  the  guidance  of  the  Angels,  who  understood 
the  cosmic  lines  of  force,  parturition  was  painless,  as  it  is 
now  among  wild  animals,  which  propagate  only  at  the 
proper  time  of  the  year  under  the  guidance  of  the  group 
spirit.  But  when  man,  acting  on  the  advice  of  certain 
spirits  half-way  between  humanity  and  the  Angels,  under- 
took to  create  at  any  and  all  times  of  the  year,  regardless  of 
cosmic  lines  of  force,  that  sin,  or  "eating  of  the  tree  of 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSYYEKS  171 

"knowledge,"  caused  the  painful  parturition  which  the  Angel 
proclaimed  to  Eve.  He  did  not  curse  her,  but  simply  stated 
what  would  be  the  result  of  the  ignorant  and  indiscriminate 
use  of  the  creative  function. 


QUESTION  No.  86. 

Is  the  Tree  of  Life  spoken  of  in  the  Bible  the  same  as  the 
philosopher's  stone  of  the  alchemists? 


Answer:  Yes  and  no.  To  understand  the  matter  it  is 
necessary  to  go  back  in  the  history  of  mankind.  There  was 
a  time  when  humanity  was  double  sexed  and  capable  of 
generating  a  body  without  the  help  of  another.  But  when 
it  became  necessary  to  build  the  brain  in  order  that  the 
spirit  might  be  able  to  create  by  thought  as  well  as  in  the 
Physical  World,  one-half  the  sex  force  was  retained  to  build 
an  organ  of  thought.  Then  it  became  necessary  for  each  to 
seek  the  cooperation  of  another  who  expressed  the  opposite 
pole  of  the  creative  force  which  he  had  available  himself  for 
sex  purposes.  Having  no  brain,  and  as  "their  eyes  had  not 
been  opened,"  they  were  of  course  unconscious  in  the 
Physical  World  and  unable  to  guide  themselves.  Therefore, 
the  Angels  herded  them  together  at  certain  times  of  the 


172  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

year  when  the  planetary  forces  were  propitious  to  perform 
the  generative  act  as  a  religious  sacrifice,  whereby  they 
gave  up  part  of  their  bodies  for  the  generation  of  a  vehicle 
for  another  spirit.  In  that  close  embrace,  the  spirit  first 
pierced  the  veil  of  the  flesh  and  Adam  "knew"  his  wife. 
Later  on,  when  the  consciousness  of  humanity  had  become 
focused  a  little  more  upon  the  Physical  World  and  a  few 
among  them  had  begun  dimly  to  perceive  the  bodies  of 
which  we  now  are  so  thoroughly  conscious,  these  pioneers 
began  to  preach  the  gospel  of  the  body,  telling  the  others 
that  they  possessed  a  physical  body,  for  the  majority  were 
then  unconscious  of  that  instrument  as  we  now  are  of 
having  a  stomach  when  in  good  health. 

Then  it  was  noticed  that  those  bodies  died,  and  the  ques- 
tion arose  among  the  pioneers  as  to  how  such  a  body  could 
be  replaced.  The  solution  was  given  to  man  by  a  certain 
class  of  spirits  who  were  stragglers  from  the  evolution  of  the 
Angels,  demi-gods,  as  we  might  say.  These  Lucifer  Spirits, 
or  light  givers,  enlightened  nascent  humanity  regarding 
their  powers  of  generating  a  body  at  any  time.  But  these 
bodies  were  not  perfect  then- — they  are  not  perfect  today — 
and  of  course  generation  without  reference  to  the  planetary 
conditions  has  produced  even  inferior  bodies  to  what  would 
have  been  otherwise  generated,  in  addition  to  the  painful 
parturition  prophesied  by  the  Angel. 

Since  then  the  generative  function  has  been  exercised  un- 
restrictedly by  the  ignorant  human  race.  But  by  the  fact  of 
death  it  has  been  possible  for  the  Angels  to  teach  humanity 
between  death  and  a  new  birth  how  to  build  a  gradually  im- 
proving body.  Had  man  learned  in  that  far  past  how  to 
renew  his  vital  body,  as  he  was  taught  to  generate  a  dense 
vehicle  at  his  own  pleasure,  then  death  would  indeed  have 
been  an  impossibility  and  man  would  have  become  immortal 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  173 

as  the  Gods.  But  he  would  then  have  immortalized  his  im- 
perfections and  made  progress  an  impossibility.  It  is  the 
renewal  of  this  vital  body  which  is  expressed  in  the  Bible 
as  "eating  of  the  Tree  of  Life."  At  the  time  of  his  en- 
lightenment concerning  generation  man  was  a  spiritual 
being  whose  eyes  were  not  yet  blinded  by  the  material 
world,  and  he  might  have  learned  the  secret  of  vitalizing 
his  body  at  will,  thus  frustrating  evolution.  Thus  we  see 
-that  death,  when  it  comes  naturally,  is  not  a  curse  but  our 
greatest  and  best  friend,  for  it  frees  us  from  an  instrument 
from  which  we  can  learn  no  more;  it  takes  us  out  of  an 
environment  which  we  have  outgrown,  that  we  may  learn 
-to  build  a  better  body  in  an  environment  of  wider  scope 
in  which  we  can  make  more  progress  toward  the  goal  of 
perfection. 

In  this  pilgrimage  there  comes  at  last  a  time  when  man 
is  fitted  to  have  the  powers  of  life.  The  body  which  he  has 
made  for  himself  becomes  pure  and  is  of  service  for  a 
much  longer  time  than  heretofore.  Then  he  begins  to  seek 
after  the  philosopher's  stone,  the  elixir  vitas,  or  whatever 
name  he  may  choose  t6~~employ.  'The  alchemists  aimed  to 
manufacture  this  pure  and  holy  vehicle,  but  not  by  a 
chemical  process  in  a  laboratory,  as  supposed  by  the 
ignorant  multitude.  Nomenclature  which  gave  color  to  that 
idea  was  made  necessary  because  they  lived  in  an  age  when 
a  dominant  and  apostate  church  would  have  brought  them 
to  death  had  the  truth  been  known.  When  they  spoke  of 
transmuting  base  metals  to  gold,  they  spoke  the  truth  not 
only  from  the  material  standpoint  but  also  from  the 
spiritual,  for  gold  has  ever  been  the  symbol  of  spirit  and 
these  alchemists  aimed  to  spiritualize  their  bodies,  which 
are  of  baser  texture. 

Everywhere  the  pure  and  beautiful  symbol  of  transpar- 


174  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

ency  has  been  given  to  designate  the  power  of  purity.  In 
the  Old  Testament  we  hear  of  the  Temple  of  Solomon  that 
was  "built  without  sound  of  hammer."  The  most  beautiful 
ornament  there  was  the  molten  sea.  Hiram  Abiff,  the 
master-workman,  as  his  final  achievement,  succeeded  in 
smelting  all  the  metals  of  the  earth  into  an  alloy  as 
transparent  as  glass.  In  the  New  Testament  we  are  told 
the  last  about  a  beautiful  city  having  in  its  midst  a  sea  of 
glass.  In  the  East,  the  initiate  aims  to  become  the  diamond- 
soul,  pure  and  transparent.  In  the  West  the  Philosopher's 
Stone  is  the  symbol  of  the  purified  soul  extracted  from  the 
bodies  which  have  been  transmuted  and  spiritualized.  The 
soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die,  but  the  pure  soul  is  im- 
mortalized by  the  elixir  vitas,  the  "Tree  of  Life,"  into  a 
vital  body  that  will  last  milleniums  as  a  vehicle  for  the 
spirit. 


QUESTION  No.  87. 

The  Lord  had  respect  unto  Abel  and  his  bloody  offering, 
but  unto  Cain  and  his  sweet  and  clean  offering,  He  had  not 
respect.  Why  ? 


Answer:     The  inquirer  is  under  a  misapprehension.   The 
offering  of  Abel  was  not  a  bloody  offering.    It  is  nowhere 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  175 

stated  that  Abel  killed  an  animal.  The  legend  of  the  occult 
free  masons,  which  we  will  give  in  part,  tells  the  story : 

Once  upon  a  time,  the  Elohim  created  Eve;  he  united 
with  her  and  she  bore  Cain;  he  left  her  before  the  birth  of 
Cain  and  Cain  was  thus  "the  son  of  the  widow."  Then 
the  Elohim  Jehova  created  Adam  who  united  with  Eve 
and  she  bore  Abel.  In  time  Cain  and  Abel  brought  their 
offerings  to  Jehovah.  Abel  brought  of  his  flocks  created 
by  God  while  Cain  brought  the  work  of  his  own  hands,  the 
grain.  And  Jehovah  received  the  gift  which  Abel  had 
found  ready  to  his  hand,  made  by  nature,  but  he  despised 
the  sacrifice  which  was  the  outcome  of  the  creative  ability 
of  Cain.  Then  Cain  slew  Abel  and  was  cursed.  Adam 
again  united  with  Eve,  and  she  bore  Seth. 

From  Cain  and  Seth  came  two  classes  of  people.  The 
descendants  of  Cain  were  Tubal-Cain  and  Hiram  Abiff, 
cunning  master  workmen,  who  knew  how  to  fashion  things 
with  their  hands,  having  within  themselves  the  divine 
ability  of  creation,  of  making  two  blades  of  grass  grow 
where  there  was  only  one  before,  and  from  them  come  all 
those  who  work  with  their  hands  and  strive  to  conquer  the 
earth  and  its  resources. 

From  Seth  descended  the  kings  and  the  priests,  who  re- 
ceived their  wisdom  ready  made  from  the  Gods,  and  take 
things  as  they  find  them.  Among  them  was  Solomon,  the 
wisest  of  men,  but  he  had  not  worked  for  his  wisdom  him- 
self, he  received  it  as  a  gift  of  God.  These  two  classes  are 
still  found  upon  earth  today  and  are  battling  for  suprem- 
acy. One  is  the  progressive  temporal  Powers,  the  other  the 
conservative  Priest-craft. 

The  reason,  then,  why  Jehovah  accepted  the  offering  of 
Abel  was  because  he  had  taken  things  as  they  were  found 
created;  he  was  a  son  of  man,  and  did  not  aspire  to  divine 


176  KOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

creatorship.  But  Cain  was  of  a  divine  nature;  Tie  had  with- 
in him  the  creative  instinct;  and  that  was  not  to  the  liking 
of  the  God. 


QUESTION  No.  88. 

What  is   the   esoteric  significance  of   the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant? 


Answer:  We  read  in  the  earliest  chapters  of  the  Bible 
about  the  Fall  in  Eden,  when  man  took  the  creative  force 
into  his  own  hands,  used  it  ignorantly  and  thus  sinned 
against  the  laws  of  nature.  Propagation  is  a  faculty  of  the 
vital  body  which  is  the  shadow  of  the  life  spirit,  the 
second  aspect  of  the  threefold  spirit  in  man. 

Cherubim  are  described  as  having  been  put  on  guard  with 
a  flaming  sword  when  man  was  driven  out  from  Eden,  lest 
he  eat  of  the  Tree  of  Life  and  become  immortal,  for  they 
are  the  great  creative  hierarchy  which  had  charge  over  the 
earth  in  the  Sun  Period,  when  the  vital  body  germinated 
and  the  life  spirit  was  awakened. 

Then  commenced  the  long  pilgrimage  through  the  wilder- 
ness of  matter,  and  the  ark  of  the  covenant  was  the  symbol 
of  man  in  this  migratory  phase  of  his  existence.  During 
the  pilgrimage  in  the  wilderness,  the  staves  which  were 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  177 

used  to  carry  the  ark  were  always  left  in  their  places  to 
show  that  it  had  no  abiding  place,  but  when  it  came  to  the 
temple  made  without  sound  of  hammer,  the  Temple  of 
Solomon,,  its  pilgrimage  was  ended,  and  the  staves  were 
removed. 

In  its  character  as  a  symbol  of  man  the  ark  contained 
the  Book  of  the  Laiv^given  to  teach  man  right  action. 
There  was  the  rod  of  Aaron  which  budded,  a  wand  of  power, 
symbolizing  the  spiritual  force  latent  in  every  man.  This 
rod  was  a  replica  of  the  spear  of  Parsifal,  which  was  an 
instrument  of  harm  in  the  hands  of  Klingsor,  the  Black 
Magician,  and  likewise  in  the  hands  of  the  Roman  soldier, 
but  the  pure  and  spiritual  Parsifal  used  it  to  heal  the 
wounds  of  Amfortas.  The  rod  of  Aaron  had  been  used 
among  the  Egyptians  to  cause  distress  and  sorrow,  and  was 
then  hidden  within  the  ark,  symbolical  of  the  fact  that  man 
had  at  one  time  possessed  and  misused  the  spiritual  power 
now  hidden  within. 

There  was  the  pot  of  manna.  This  was  not  a  food  for 
the  body  as  materialistically  explained.  The  word  manna 
is  almost  universal.  In  the  Sanskrit  we  have  "manas,"  the 
thinker.  In  German,  the  English,  the  Scandinavian 
languages,  and  in  many  others,  we  have  the  same  word 
"man"  to  designate  the  thinker.  The  placing  of  the  pot  of 
manna  within  the  ark  commemorates  the  time  when  the 
Ego  drew  into  the  form  it  had  built  and  became  an  in- 
dwelling individual  spirit. 

That  was  the  "fall"  into  material  conditions,  neces- 
sitating the  generation  of  dense  bodies.  When  man  ar- 
rogated to  himself  the  power  to  generate  at  any  time,  he 
was  exiled  from  the  Etheric  Region  lest  he  possess  himself 
of  the  secret  of  vitalizing  the  imperfect  bodies  he  generates 
and  render  evolution  impossible. 


178  ROSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

It  is  stated  in  the  first  part  of  our  answer,  the  Cherubim 
were  the  authors  of  our  vital  powers,  so  they  must  guard 
them  until  man  is  qualified  to  have  control  himself.  There- 
fore they  are  said  to  have  heen  placed  at  the  garden  of 
Eden  with  a  Flaming  Sword,  and  it  is  of  the  greatest 
significance  that  upon  the  doors  to  the  Temple  of  Solomon 
there  stood  the  Cherubim,  holding  in  their  hands  no  longer 
the  Flaming  Sword,  but  an  open  flower.  The  flower  is  the 
generative  organ  of  the  plant,  which  accomplishes  the  act 
of  generation  in  a  pure,  passionless  manner,  and  when  man 
has  learned  how  to  become  pure  and  passionless  so  that 
each  and  every  form  is  immaculately  conceived,  he  can 
enter  into  the  temple  of  God  as  the  ark  entered  the  Temple 
of  Solomon,  and  he  may  remain  there,  as  signified  by  the 
removal  of  the  staves,  and  as  prophetically  told  in  Revela- 
tion where  the  spirit  said:  "To  him  that  overcometh,  I 
will  make  a  pillar  in  the  House  of  my  God;  thence  he  shall 
no  more  go  out." 


QUESTION  No.  89. 

Is  there  an  occult  significance  in  the  various  Christian 
feasts  of  the  year? 


Answer:  Yes,  the  feasts  of  the  year  have  the  very  deep- 
est occult  significance.  From  the  material  point  of  view, 
the  planets  are  but  so  many  masses  of  matter  going  about 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  179 

in  their  orbits  in  obedience  to  so-called  blind  laws,  but  to 
the  occultists  they  appear  as  Great  Spirits,  moving  about 
in  space  as  we  move  in  the  world. 

When  a  man  is  seen  gesticulating,  we  attach  a  certain 
significance  to  his  gestures.  If  he  shakes  his  head,  we 
know  that  he  is  negativing  a  certain  proposition,  but  if  he 
nodds,  we  infer  that  he  agrees.  If  he  beckons,  having  the 
palms  of  his  hands  turned  toward  him,  we  know  that  he 
is  motioning  for  someone  to  come  to  him,  but  if  he  turns 
the  palms  outward,  we  understand  that  he  is  warning  some- 
one to  stay  away.  In  the  case  of  the  universe,  we  usually 
do  not  think  that  there  is  any  significance  to  the  altered 
position  of  the  planets,  but  to  the  occultist  there  is  the 
very  deepest  meaning  in  all  the  varied  phenomena  of  the 
heavens.  They  correspond  to  the  gestures  of  man. 

Krisma  means  anointed,  and  anyone  who  had  a  special 
mission  to  perform  was  so  anointed  in  olden  times.  When, 
in  the  winter  time,  the  sun  is  below  the  equator  at  the 
nadir  point  of  its  travel,  the  spiritual  impulses  are  the 
greatest  in  the  world.  For  our  material  welfare,  however, 
it  is  necessary  that  the  sun  should  come  again  into  the 
northern  hemisphere,  and  so  we  speak  of  the  time  when 
the  sun  starts  upon  its  journey  northward  as  Christmas, 
the  birthday  of  the  Savior,  anointed  to  save  us  from  the 
famine  and  cold  which  would  ensue  if  he  were  to  stay  at 
the  nadir  point  always. 

As  the  sun  passes  toward  the  equator,  it  goes  through  the 
sign  Aquarius,  the  water-man,  at  that  time  the  earth  is 
deluged  with  rain,  symbolizing  the  baptism  of  the  Savior. 
Then  comes  the  passage  of  the  sun  through  the  sign  Pisces, 
the  fishes,  in  the  month  of  March.  The  stores  of  the  past 
year  have  been  all  consumed,  and  the  food  of  man  is  scant, 
hence  we  have  the  long  fast  of  Lent,  where  the  eating  of 


180  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

fish  symbolizes  this  feature  of  the  solar  journey.  Then 
comes  the  Passover,  when  the  sun  passed  over  the  equator. 
This  is  the  time  of  Easter,  when  the  sun  is  at  his  eastern 
node,  and  this  crossing  of  the  equator  is  symbolized  by  the 
crossification  or  crucifixion,  so  called,  of  the  Savior;  the  sun 
then  goes  into  the  sign  of  Aries,  the  Ram,  and  becomes  the 
Lamb  of  God,  which  is  given  for  the  salvation  of  the  world 
at  the  time  when  the  plants  begin  to  sprout.  In  order  that 
the  sacrifice  may  be  of  benefit  to  man,  however,  he  (the 
sun)  must  ascend  into  the  heavens  where  his  rays  will  have 
power  to  ripen  the  grape  and  the  corn,  and  so  we  have  the 
feast  of  Whit-Sunday  and  the  Ascension  of  the  Savior  to 
the  Throne  of  the  Father,  which  is  at  the  summer  solstice 
in  June.  There  the  sun  remains  for  three  days,  when  the 
saying  "Thence  he  shall  return"  takes  effect  as  the  sun  com- 
mences his  passage  toward  the  western  node.  At  the  time 
when  he  enters  the  sign  Virgo,  the  Virgin,  we  have  the  feast 
of  the  Assumption  and  later  on,  when  he  leaves  the  sign 
Virgo,  the  nativity  of  the  virgin,  who  seems,  as  it  were,  to 
be  born  from  the  sun. 

The  Jewish  feast  of  Tabernacles  occurred  at  the  time 
when  the  sun  was  crossing  the  equator  on  its  passage  into 
the  winter  months,  and  this  feast  was  accompanied  by  the 
weighing  in  of  the  corn  and  the  harvest  of  the  wine,  which 
were  the  gifts  of  the  solar  God  to  his  human  worshipers. 

Thus  all  the  feasts  of  the  year  are  connected  with  the 
motions  of  the  stars  through  space. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  181 

QUESTION  No.  90. 

I  understood  you  to  say  that  the  Christ  has  been  incar- 
nated  only  once  in  Jesus;  was  he  not  previously  incarnated 
in  Gautama  Buddha  and  still  earlier  in  Krishna? 


Answer:  No.  Jesus  Himself  was  a  spirit  belonging  to 
our  human  evolution,  and  so  was  Gautama  Buddha.  The 
writer  has  no  information  concerning  Krishna,  but  is  in- 
clined to  believe  that  he  was  also  a  spirit  belonging  to  the 
human  race,  because  the  Indian  stories  concerning  him  tell 
of  how  he  entered  heaven  and  what  took  place  there.  The 
Christ  spirit  which  entered  the  body  of  Jesus  when  Jesus 
himself  vacated  it,  was  a  ray  from  the  cosmic  Christ.  We 
may  follow  Jesus  back  in  his  previous  incarnations,  and  we 
can  trace  his  growth  to  the  present  day.  The  Christ  spirit, 
on  the  contrary,. is  not  to  be  found  among  our  human  spirits 
at  all. 

We  may  say  that  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  He  worked 
upon  the  earth  from  the  outside,  much  as  the  group  spirit 
works  with  the  animals  from  without,  guiding  and  helping 
them,  until  they  become  sufficiently  individualized  to  be 
trie  abode  of  an  individual  spirit.  There  was  no  indwell- 
ing spirit  in  the  earth  prior  to  the  coming  of  Christ,  but 
at  the  time  when  the  sacrifice  upon  Golgotha  had  been  con- 
summated and  the  Christ  spirit  was  liberated  from  the  body 
of  Jesus,  it  drew  into  the  earth  and  is  now  the  indwelling 
Earth  Spirit,  which  Paul  says  "is  groaning  and  travailing, 
waiting  for  the  day  of  liberation,"  for,  contrary  to  the  ac- 
cepted opinion,  the  sacrifice  upon  Golgotha  was  not  com- 
pleted with  the  death  of  the  body  of  Jesus;  in  fact,  that 
event  may  be  said  to  be  only  the  beginning;  the  sacrifice 


182  ROSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

will  continue  until  such  time  as  we  shall  have  evolved  the 
altruism  and  love  that  will  liberate  the  Earth  Spirit  from 
the  cramping  conditions  of  material  existence,  when  the 
necessity  for  guiding  us  shall  have  passed  away. 


QUESTION  No.  91. 

We  are  told  that  "God  so  loved  tlie  world  that  He  gave 
His  only  begotten  Son,  that  wliosoever  believeih  in  Him 
should  not  die  but  have  everlasting  life/'  How  can  we 
reconcile  that  idea  with  tltc  words  of  Christ,  "1  came  not  to 
bring  peace  but  a  sword"'? 


Answer:  It  is  said  that  the  "law  and  the  prophets  were 
until  Christ,"  and  there  are  four  steps  whereby  man  lifts 
himself  to  God.  At  first,  when  lie  awakens  to  a  conscious- 
ness in  the  Physical  World  and  is  in  the  savage  state,  he 
finds  himself  surrounded  by  other  men,  who  by  the  very 
stress  of  circumstances  are  forced  to  fight  for  life,  men 
among  whom  "might  is  right" ;  here  he  learns  to  rely  upon 
his  own  strength  to  save  him  from  the  onslaughts  of  wild 
animals  and  other  men.  But  he  perceives  around  him  the 
nature  powers,  and  of  them  he  is  afraid,  for  he  knows  their 
ability  to  kill  and  his  own  impotence  to  cope  with  them.  He 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  183 

therefore  begins  to  worship,  seeking  to  propitiate  the  God 
he  fears  by  bloody  sacrifices. 

Then  comes  the  time  when  he  begins  to  look  to  God  as 
the  giver  of  things,  who  will  reward  him  here  and  now  for 
obedience  to  his  law  and  punish  him  instantly  for  disobedi- 
ence. A  mighty  ally  against  his  enemies  but  a  powerful 
enemy,  and  therefore  much  to  be  feared  also.  And  so,  he 
worships  and  sacrifices  animals  through  fear  and  avarice. 

Then  comes  the  stage  when  he  is  taught  to  worship  a  God 
of  Love  and  to  sacrifice  himself  from  day  to  day,  through 
his  whole  life,  for  a  reward  in  a  future  state  which  he  is  to 
believe  in  by  faith  and  which  is  not  even  clearly  outlined. 

Finally  man  will  reach  a  stage  when  he  will  recognize 
his  divinity  and  do  right  because  it  is  right  without  thought 
of  fear  or  bribe. 

The  Jews  had  reached  the  second  of  these  stages  and 
were  under  the  law.  The  Christian  religion  is  gradually 
working  through  the  third  stage,  though  not  yet  freed  from 
the  second.  All  of  us  are  yet  under  laws  made  by  God  and 
by  man  in  order  to  curb  our  desire  bodies  by  fear,  but  to 
advance  us  spiritually  from  now  on  we  must  sensitize  our 
vital  body  which  is  amenable  to  love  while  not  at  all  cog- 
nizant of  law  which  governs  the  desire  nature. 

In  order  to  prepare  this  coming  state  the  priests,  who 
were  more  advanced  than  the  ordinary  people,  kept  separate 
and  apart  from  them.  We  hear  in  the  East  that  only  a  cer- 
tain caste,  the  Brahmins,  were  allowed  to  enter  the  temples 
and  perform  the  temple  services.  Among  the  Jews,  only  the 
Levites  were  allowed  to  approach  the  holy  place,  and  among 
other  nations  it  was  the  same.  The  priests  were  always  a 
distinct  class,  who  were  not  allowed  to  marry  among  the 
ordinary  people.  They  were  separate  and  apart  in  every 
respect. 


184  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

That  was  because  the  leaders  of  humanity  could  only  use 
the  strain  where  there  existed  a  certain  laxity  between  the 
vital  body  and  the  dense  body.  And  so  they  bred  these 
priests  and  herded  them  around  the  temples,  regulating 
their  life,  sexually  and  otherwise,  in  every  respect.  But  at 
the  time  when  Christ  was  liberated  from  the  body  of  Jesus 
and  diffused  His  Being  throughout  the  whole  earth,  the  veil 
was  rent,  as  a  symbol  of  the  fact,  that  the  need  for  any 
special  condition  had  passed  away.  From  that  time  on  the 
ether  has  been  changing  in  the  earth.  An  increasingly 
higher  rate  of  vibration  allows  for  the  expression  of  altru- 
istic qualities.  It  was  the  starting  of  that  enormous  vibra- 
tion which  caused  the  darkness  said  to  have  attended  the 
crucifixion.  That  was  not  darkness  at  all,  but  an  intense 
light  which  blinded  people  for  the  time  being  until  the 
vibrations  slowed  down  by  immersion  in  the  dense,  physical 
earth.  A  few  hours  later  the  radiant  Christ  Spirit  had 
drawn  into  the  earth  sufficiently  to  restore  normal  condi- 
tions. But  gradually  that  power  from  within  is  gaining 
the  ascendency,  and  the  etheric  vibrations  are  being  ac- 
celerated, increasing  altruism  and  spiritual  growth.  Thus 
the  conditions  are  now  such  that  no  special  or  privileged 
class  need  exist,  but  each  and  every  one  may  aspire  to  enter 
the  path  of  initiation. 

Old  conditions  die  hard,  however;  under  the  regime  of 
Jehovah,  the  Spirit  of  the  Moon,  humanity  had  been  broken 
up  into  nations,  and  in  order  that  He  might  guide  them  it 
was  necessary  that  He  should  at  times  use  one  nation  to 
punish  another,  for  humanity  was  not  then  amenable  to 
love — it  would  only  obey  under  the  lash  of  fear.  Before  the 
great  Universal  Brotherhood  of  Love  can  be  inaugurated 
it  is  necessary  to  break  up  these  nations  on  the  same  princi- 
ple that  if  we  have  a  number  of  buildings,  composed  of 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  185 

bricks  and  we  wish  to  build  them  into  one  grand  structure, 
it  is  necessary  first  to  break  them  to  pieces  so  that  the  indi- 
vidual bricks  will  be  available  for  use  in  the  larger  build- 
ing. Therefore  the  Christ  said,  "I  come  not  to  bring  peace, 
but  a  sword/' 

We  must  outgrow  patriotism  and  learn  to  say  as  that 
great  soul,  Thomas  Paine,  "The  world  is  my  country,  and 
to  do  good  is  my  religion/'  Until  that  time,  the  wars  must 
go  on  and  the  more  the  better,  for  thereby  the  sooner  will 
the  horror  become  sufficiently  appalling  to  compel  peace. 

On  the  holy  night  when  the  Christ  child  was  born,  the 
angels  sang  a  song,  "Peace  on  Earth  and  Good  Will  among 
Men."  Later  the  child  grew  up  and  said,  "I  come  not  to 
bring  peace,  but  a  sword,"  and  the  Christian  religion  has 
been  the  bloodiest  of  all  religions  of  humanity.  It  has  car- 
ried desolation  and  sorrow  with  it  wherever  it  has  gone,  but 
out  of  all  that  travail  there  will  yet  come  the  day  when 
the  song  of  the  Angels  will  become  a  fact  and  the  words 
of  the  Christ  uttered  at  other  times  concerning  love  to  one's 
neighbor  will  be  lived.  When  the  sword  has  done  its  work 
it  will  be  beaten  into  plow  shares,  and  there  will  be  no  more 
war,  for  there  will  be  no  more  nations. 


186  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  92. 
What  is  meant  by  everlasting  salvation  and  damnation? 


Answer:  The  orthodox  religions  say  that  those  who  have 
done  well  in  this  life  are  saved,  that  is  to  say,  they  will  go 
to  a  heaven  not  very  clearly  defined,  and  those  who  fail  to 
reach  this  salvation  are  plunged  into  a  hell  of  which  not 
very  much  is  known  save  that  it  is  a  place  of  misery.  The 
good  and  the  bad  stay  in  their  respective  places,  once  they 
have  been  judged;  there  is  no  redemption  for  the  lost 
souls,  and  no  danger  of  a  fall  for  those  once  saved. 

Such  an  interpretation  is  radically  wrong,  if  the  Greek 
dictionary  is  taken  as  authority,  for  obviously  the  meaning 
hinges  upon  the  word  translated  "everlasting"  That  word 
is  aionian,  and  in  the  dictionary  it  is  translated  to  mean 
"an  age,  an  indefinite  period,  a  lifetime/'  etc.  What,  then, 
is  the  true  meaning  of  the  passage  quoted  we  may  ask  our- 
selves, and  in  order  to  find  that"  meaning  it  will  be  necessary 
to  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  life. 

In  the  beginning  of  manifestation,  God,  a  great  flame, 
differentiates  a  vast  number  of  incipient  flames  or  sparks 
within  Himself,  not  from  Himself,  for  it  is  an  actual  fact 
that  "in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being."  Noth- 
ing can  exist  outside  God.  So  within  Himself,  God  dif- 
ferentiates these  countless  souls.  Each  of  them  is  poten- 
tially divine,  each  enfolds  all  His  powers  as  the  seed  en- 
folds the  plant,  but  as  the  seed  must  be  buried  in  the  ground 
to  bring  forth  the  plant,  so  it  is  necessary  that  these  divine 
sparks  should  be  immersed  in  material  vehicles  in  order 
that  they  may  learn  lessons  that  can  be  mastered  only  in 
such  a  separative  existence  as  there  is  in  the  world. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  187 

The  world  may  be  regarded  as  a  training  school  for  the 
evolving  spirits.  Some  of  them  started  early  and  applied 
themselves  diligently  to  the  task  before  them ;  consequently 
they  progressed  rapidly.  Others  started  later  and  are  lag- 
gards. They  are  therefore  left  behind  in  the  race;  but  all 
will  ultimately  attain  the  goal  of  perfection.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  foregoing  fact  there  are  a  number  of  classes 
of  these  pilgrim  spirits,  and  before  one  set,  or  class,  of 
spirits  can  be  moved  up  another  step  in  evolution  it  is 
necessary  that  they  should  have  attained  a  certain  standard 
of  proficiency.  They  are  saved  from  a  lower  condition 
which  they  have  outgrown.  Once  this  measure  of  efficiency 
has  been  acquired,  they  are  promoted  into  another  race, 
another  epoch.  But  among  a  large  number  there  are  al- 
ways laggards,  and  these  are  condemned  to  stay  in  the  class 
where  they  were  until  they  have  arrived  at  the  stage  of 
growth  required  for  advancement.  The  plan  is  similar  to 
the  method  in  which  children  in  a  school  are  promoted  into 
the  next  higher  class  at  the  yearly  examinations  if  they 
have  attained  a  certain  standard  of  knowledge ;  if  not,  they 
are  condemned  to  stay  behind — not  forever,  but  only  until 
another  year's  examination  proves  that  they  have  qualified. 

The  foregoing  is  not  a  distorted  or  a  wrong  representa- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  the  word  aionian.  It  has  been  used 
other  places  in  the  Bible  in  a  manner  which  bears  out  our 
contention.  For  instance,  in  Paul's  letter  to  Philemon, 
where  he  returns  to  him  the  slave  Onesimus  with  the  words, 
"Perhaps  it  was  well  that  you  should  lose  him  for  a  time 
that  he  might  be  given  back  to  you  forever."  The  word 
"forever"  is  the  same  word  aionian  which  is  translated 
everlasting  in  connection  with  damnation  and  salvation, 
and  it  will  be  readily  seen  that  in  this  case  it  can  only 


188  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

mean  a  part  of  a  lifetime,  for  neither  Paul  or  Philemon, 
as  such,  would  live  forever. 


.  •        .; 
QUESTION  No.  93. 

What  is  the  teaching  of  the  Rosicrucians  concerning  the 
Immaculate  Conception? 


Answer:  The  Doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception 
is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most  sublime  mysteries  of  the  Chris^ 
tian  religion,  and  perhaps  for  that  reason  it  has  suffered 
more  fr(^m  being  dragged  down  into  materiality  than  any 
of  the  other  mysteries.  It  has  suffered  alike  from  the  in- 
terpretation of  its  clumsy  supporters  and  the  sneers  of 
the  skeptics.  When,  for  instance,  we  see  in  churches  a  pic- 
ture of  God  as  an  old  man  sitting  up  in  the  skies  witn  a 
blow-pipe  in  his  mouth  in  the  act  of  blowing  the  infant 
Jesus  into  the  side  of  Mary,  it  is  more  than  ridiculous,  it  is 
pathetic ! 

The  popular,  but  erroneous,  idea  is  that  about  2000  years 
ago  an  individual  named  Jesus  Christ  was  born  of  a  mother 
without  the  cooperation  of  an  earthly  father,  and  this  inci- 
dent is  regarded  as  unique  in  the  history  of  the  world.  In 
reality,  it  is  not  unparalleled;  the  immaculate  conception 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  189 

has  taken  place  many  times  in  the  history  of  the  world  and 
will  become  universal  in  the  future. 

The  anticipated  history  of  man  is  written  in  the  stars-^- 
man  being  the  little  world  as  the  stars  are  great  worlds. 
There  the  ideal,  the  prototype  of  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion is  dramatically  presented  from  year  to  year.  The  sun 
is  the  life  giver  of  the  world;  it  is  the  light  of  the  world 
also.  And  as  the  more  advanced  beings  who  are  saviors 
of  mankind  appear  when  the  greatest  spiritual  darkness  is 
upon  earth,  so  the  sun  is  born  anew  at  the  winter  solstice 
and  starts  its  journey  toward  the  equator  on  the  darkest 
night  of  the  year,  the  night  between  the  24th  and  the  25th 
of  December.  At  that  time,  the  zodiacal  sign  Virgo  rises 
upon  the  eastern  horizon  in  all  northern  latitudes,  which 
are  the  most  populous  parts  of  the  earth. 

Thus,  the  light  of  the  world  is  each  year  immaculately 
conceived  by  the  celestial  virgin  mother  and  starts  upon  his 
journey  northward  to  give  his  life  for  humanity  as  he  ripens 
the  corn  and  the  grape.  By  analogy  the  spiritual  teachers 
are  born  at  times  when  spiritual  darkness  is  greatest,  and 
they  give  to  man  the  bread  of  life  which  feeds  the  soul. 

Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  but  like  always  be- 
gets like;  an  entity  that  is  vile  must  be  born  of  a  mother 
who  is  vile,  and  before  a  savior  can  be  born  a  pure  virgin 
mother  must  be  found.  But  when  we  say  "virgin,"  we  do 
not  mean  virgin  in  a  physical  sense.  We  all  possess  physical 
virginity  in  the  early  years  of  our  lives,  but  virginity  of 
the  spirit  is  a  quality  of  soul  acquired  by  lives  of  pure 
thought  and  lofty  aspirations.  It  is  not  dependent  upon 
the  state  of  the  body.  A  true  virgin  may  bear  several  chil- 
dren and  remain  "virgin." 

Whether  a  child  is  conceived  in  sin  or  immaculately  con- 
ceived is  thus  dependent  upon  its  own  inherent  soul  qual- 


190  KOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

ity,  for  if  the  Ego  to  be  born  is  pure  and  chaste  it  will 
naturally  be  born  to  a  mother  who  is  also  of  the  same  pure 
and  beautiful  nature.  And  the  physical  act,  which  in  the 
case  of  most  people  is  dictated  by  passion  and  desire  for 
sensual  gratification,  is  performed  by  the  pure  and  the 
chaste  of  soul  in  a  spirit  of  prayer  as  a  sacrifice.  Thus  the 
child  is  begotten  without  the  sin  of  passion ;  it  is  immacu- 
lately conceived. 

Such  a  one  is  never  an  accidental  child.  His  coming 
has  been  heralded  and  looked  forward  to  with  anticipation 
of  pleasure  and  joy,  and  there  are  many  cases  at  the  present 
day  where  people  come  very  close  to  an  imitation  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception;  cases  where  both  the  parents  are 
pure  and  chaste ;  where  they  perform  the  generative  act  in 
the  spirit  of  pure  love ;  where  the  mother  is  unmolested  dur- 
ing the  gestatory  period  and  the  child  is  born  in  almost  as 
pure  a  manner  as  foreshadowed  in  the  symbolical  immacu- 
late conceptions.  In  time,  when  humanity  grows  more  and 
more  altruistic,  passion  will  be  superseded  by  pure  love, 
and  all  men  will  be  immaculately  begotten. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS 

QUESTION  No.  94. 
Was  not  the  Star  of  Bethlehem  a  comet? 


Answer:  No;  the  Star  of  Bethlehem  shines  at  midnight 
of  every  night  as  it  shone  upon  the  night  which  is  recorded 
in  the  Bible,  and  may  be  seen  by  anyone  among  the  wise 
men  of  today,  though  hidden  from  all  others. 

The  key  to  the  mystery  is  this : 

The  Gospels  are  not  simply  stories  of  the  life  of  an  indi- 
vidual ;  they  depict  dramatically  and  in  symbol  the  inci- 
dents in  the  path  of  attainment;  they  are  formulae  of  initia- 
tion. 

In  the  summertime,  when  the  whole  earth  is  exerting  it- 
self to  bring  forth  the  bread  of  life  for  all  who  live  upon  it, 
the  sun  is  high  in  the  heavens,  sending  forth  its  life  giving 
rays  toward  our  planet.  Then  all  the  physical  activities 
are  to  the  fore  and  man  is  engrossed  in  material  occupa- 
tions necessary  to  his  existence.  But  when  in  winter  the 
sun  is  below  the  equator  and  nature  slumbers,  spiritual  in- 
fluences sent  forth  from  the  sun  are  most  potent.  When 
the  physical  darkness  increases  the  spiritual  light  burns 
more  brightly  and  culminates  in  the  birth  of  saviors  on 
the  darkest  night  in  the  year,  between  the  twenty-fourth 
and  the  twenty-fifth  of  December,  at  the  time  the  sun  starts 
on  its  journey  northward  to  save  humanity  from  the  cold 
and  famine  which  would  result  if  it  remained  in  the  south- 
ern latitudes. 

On  that  particular  night  of  the  year  the  spiritual  vibra- 
tions are  strongest.  It  is  the  Holy  Night  of  the  year  par 
excellence.  On  that  night  it  is  easiest  for  the  neophyte  to 
come  into  conscious  touch  with  spiritual  vibrations.  There- 


192  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

fore  it  was  customary  to  take  neophytes  into  the  temples  jn 
yon  Holy  Night.  There  they  were  entranced  under  the 
guidance  of  wise  men  and  taught  to  leave  their  bodies  con- 
sciously by  an  act  of  will.  The  earth  then  became  trans- 
parent to  their  gaze  and  they  saw  behind  it  the  sun  at  mid- 
night— the  Hazing  star.  Not,  of  course,  the  physical  sun, 
but  the  spiritual  sun  which  is  the  true  Christ-star,  for  the 
cosmic  Christ  is  the  highest  Initiate  among  the  luminous 
sun  spirits,  the  Archangels. 


QUESTION  No.  95. 
.   What  were  the  gifts  of  the  wise  men? 


Answer:  The  Bible  tells  us  that  they  were  gold,  myrrh 
and  frankincense. 

Gold  has  always  been  regarded  as  the  emblem  of  spirit 
in  the  old  legends  and  symbology.  In  the  story  of  the  Ring 
of  the  Niebelung,  dramatized  by  Wagner,  we  hear  how  the 
Rhine  maidens  played  in  their  watery  element  on  the  bot- 
tom of  the  river  Rhine.  The  water  was  lighted  by  the 
flame  of  the  gold.  This  legend  takes  us  back  to  the  time 
when  these  children  of  the  mist  were  living  in  the  beautiful 
conditions  of  early  Atlantis,  where  they  were  one  vast 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  393 

brotherhood,  innocent  and  childlike,  and  the  Universal 
Spirit  had  not  yet  drawn  into  the  separate  bodies. 

The  gold  resting  upor.  the  rock  at  the  bottom  of  the 
water  was  the  symbol  of  the  Universal  Spirit  illuminating 
all  mankind.  Later  it  is  stolen  and  welded  into  a  ring  by 
Alberich,  the  Niebelung,  who  forswears  love  to  possess  this 
gold.  Then  it  becomes  the  symbol  of  the  separate  Ego  in 
the  present  loveless  age  of  selfishness.  The  man  who  has 
become  wise  and  sees  the  evils  of  selfishness  offers  gold  to 
the  Christ  as  a  symbol  of  his  desire  for  the  return  to  the 
Universal  spirit  of  Love. 

The  second  gift,  myrrh,  is  an  aromatic  plant  growing  in 
Arabia  which  is  very  rare  and  scarce.  It  is  the  symbol  of 
the  soul.  We  are  told  in  legends  of  saints  who  have  been 
so  holy  that  they  emitted  an  aroma.  This  is  thought  to  be 
a  pious  fable,  but  it  is  an  actual  fact  that  a  man  may  be- 
come so  holy  that  he  emits  a  most  beautiful  perfume. 

The  third  gift,  frankincense,  is  a  symbol  of  the  dense 
body,  which  has  been  etherealized  by  a  holy  life,  for  frank- 
incense is  a  physical  vapor.  The  minister  of  the  interior, 
of  Servia,  one  of  the  conspirators  who  planned  the  regicide 
in  that  country  less  than  a  decade  ago,  has  since  written 
his  memoirs.  It  appears,  according  to  him,  that  when 
they  burned  incense  at  the  time  they  invited  people  to  join 
them  in  their  conspiracy,  they  invariably  succeeded  in  win- 
ning over  the  one  whom  they  sought.  He  did  not  know 
why,  he  simply  mentioned  it  as  a  curious  coincidence.  But 
to  the  occultist  the  matter  is  plain. 

No  spirit  can  work  in  any  world  without  a  vehicle  made 
of  the  material  of 'that  world.  To  function  in  the  Physical 
World,  to  fetch  and  carry,  we  must  have  a  dense  body  and 
a  vital  body;  both  are  made  of  various  grades  of  physical 
matter,  solids,  liquids,  gas  and  ether.  We  may  obtain  such 


194  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

vehicles  in  the  ordinary  way,  by  going  through  the  womb  to 
birth,  or  we  may  extract  ether  from  the  body  of  a  medium 
and  temporarily  use  that  to  materialize,  or  we  may  use 
the  fumes  of  incense.  In  the  Catholic  Church,  where  cer- 
tain spirits  are  invoked,  incense  furnishes  the  vehicle 
whereby  they  may  operate  upon  the  assembled  congrega- 
tion as  the  discarnate  spirits  did  to  favor  the  Servian 
regicides. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  gifts  of  the  wise  men  are  spirit, 
soul  and  body,  devoted  to  the  service  of  humanity.  To 
give  oneself  is  to  imitate  Christ,  to  follow  in  His  steps. 


QUESTION  Ko.  96. 

Was  not  Jesus  a  Jew?  If  so,  what  did  he  mean  by  say- 
ing " Before  Abraham  was,  I  am"?  For  even  if  lie  rein- 
carnated, Abraham  was  the  father  of  the  Jewish  race. 


Answer:  In  olden  times,  and  even  up  to  the  present 
day,  patriotism  is  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  prime  virtues, 
but  from  the  occult  standpoint  there  is  of  course  but  the 
One  Spirit,  and  the  races  are  but  an  evanescent  phase  of 
the  scheme  of  evolution;  in  fact,  a  very  dangerous  phase, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  195 

for  while  in  the  Periods  and  great  Epochs  of  evolution 
there  is  an  abundance  of  time,  and  it  is  possible  for  the 
leaders  to  biing  most  of  the  spirits  in  line  for  promotion, 
the  races  and  nations  are  born  and  die  in  such  a  compara- 
tively short  time,  there  is  great  danger  that  the  spirits  may 
become  enmeshed  in  the  race  bodies  and  not  follow  the  bulk 
of  humanity  in  their  progress. 

This  is  just  what  happened  to  the  Jews.  They  were  so 
intensely  patriotic  that  no  Jew  thought  of  himself  as  an 
individual  at  all.  Primarily,  and  when  using  the  highest 
terms,  he  would  speak  of  himself  as  "Abraham's  seed/' 
Secondarily,  he  thought  of  himself  as  belonging  to  a  cer- 
tain tribe,  and  lastly,  perhaps,  he  was  Solomon  Levi  or 
Moses  Cohen. 

The  Christ  combatted  this  idea  of  identity  with  the  race 
when  he  said,  "Before  Abraham  was,  I  am."  The  Ego 
existed  before  Abraham ;  Abraham  was  an  incarnation  of 
an  Ego,  a  spirit.  He,  and  the  Jewish  race  descended  from 
him,  were  simply  bodies,  but  the  Egos  which  inhabited 
them  existed  before  the  race  bodies.  Thus  the  Christ  ad- 
vised his  hearers  to  look  from  the  evanescent  to  the  eternal. 

In  another  place  He  said,  "Unless  a  man  leave  father 
and  mother,  he  cannot  follow  Me."  Father  and  mother  are 
also  race  bodies.  We  have  no  right  to  leave  dependent  rela- 
tives to  follow  the  higher  life ;  we  must  fulfil  all  our  duties 
here  before  we  selfishly  take  up  the  study  of  the  higher 
life,  but  we  are  not  to  identify  ourselves  with  the  race,  the 
nation,  or  the  family  into  which  we  are  born.  Every  one 
of  us  is  an  individual  spirit,  which  existed  before  the  bodies 
we  call  races  and  will  exist  after  they  have  ceased  to  be. 
Failing  to  keep  that  fact  in  mind,  we  may  crystallize  and 
stay  with  the  race  instead  of  progressing.  That  is  just 
what  the  Jews  have  done.  Their  intense  patriotism  has 


196  EOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

caused  them  as  spirits  to  reincarnate  in  the  Jewish  race 
bodies  for  milleniums. 

The  leaders  of  humanity  had  sought  in  various  ways  to 
get  them  to  amalgamate  with  others,  that  they  might  pro- 
gress, but  always  in  vain,  and  Christ  was  sent  to  them  for 
the  same  reason  that  Booker  T.  Washington  has  been  sent 
to  the  negroes.  Though  a  more  advanced  soul  than  his 
race  brethren,  he  was  incarnated  in  a  black  body  to  enable 
him  to  help  the  negroes  in  the  most  efficient  manner.  Had 
he  been  embodied  in  a  white  skin,  there  would  always  have 
been  a  seeming  patronage.  Similar  reasons  decreed  the 
birth  of  Christ  as  a  Jew.  It  was  hoped  that  they  would 
receive  His  teachings  because  coming  from  one  of  their 
own  race.  But  instead  of  honoring  their  traditions  and 
looking  up  to  Abraham  in  a  reverential  attitude  of  mind, 
He  cast  down  their  ideals,  He  spoke  of  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth,  He  asserted  the  priority  of  the  individual  to 
the  race,  and,  therefore,  they  would  have  none  of  Him — 
"they  chose  Barrabas." 


QUESTION  Xo.  97. 

Jesus    was    baptized    at    thirty,    receiving    the    "Christ 
Spirit/'    Please  explain  this  baptism. 


Answer:     The  earth  has  not  always  been  as  it  is  now. 
Science  tells  us  that  there  was  a  time  when  it  was  blended 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  197 

firemist.  The  Bible  goes  back  even  further  and  speaks  of 
a  time  before  that  mist,  when  the  earth  became  glowing 
and  luminous  as  fire;  a  time  when  darkness  reigned. 

There  have  been  in  all  four  epochs  or  stages  in  this  de- 
velopment of  the  earth.  First  there  was  this  dark  stage, 
which  is  called  in  the  Rosicrucian  terminology  the  "Po- 
larian"  Epoch.  Then  the  substance  which  now  forms  the 
earth  was  a  dark  mass,  hot  and  gaseous.  -In  the  second 
stage,  called  the  Hyperborean  Epoch,  this  dark  mass  was 
ignited.  We  are  told  "God  said:  'Let  there  be  light/  and 
there  was  light."  Then  came  the  stage  when  the  heat  of 
this  firemist  in  contact  with  cold  space  generated  moisture, 
and  this  moisture  was  densest  near  the  fiery  core,  where 
it  was  heated  to  steam  that  rushed  outward  from  the  cen- 
ter— "God  divided  the  waters  from  the  waters,"  that  is,  the 
dense  water  nearest  the  core  from  the  light  steam  outside. 
Finally  there  came  an  incrustation,  such  as  always  takes 
place  where  water  is  boiled  over  and  over  again,  and  thus 
the  crust  over  the  earth,  the  dry  land,  was  formed. 

When  that  crust  had  been  completed,  there  was  no 
water  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth,  but  as  the  Bible  says, 
"A  mist  went  up  from  tae  surface,"  and  no  herb  had  yet 
grown  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  At  that  time,  however, 
vegetation  began  to  appear  and  nascent  humanity  lived 
there.  But  they  \vere  not  a  humanity  constituted  as  we  are 
today.  Their  form  was  very  much  different  and  they  were 
not  nearly  as  evolved  as  we  are  at  the  present  time.  In 
fact,  body  and  spirit  were  not  perfectly  together;  the  spirits 
hovered  partly  outside  and  therefore  "man's  eyes  had  not 
yet  been  opened." 

Old  folk  stories  such  as  we  hoar  of  in  Germany  and  dif- 
ferent places  in  the  Old  World,  speak  of  them  as  the  Niebel- 
unp-en.  "Xiebcl"  moan-  mi>t  and  "ungen"  is  children. 


198  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

They  were  the  "children  of  the  mist/'  for  the  clear  atmos- 
phere of  today  did  not  then  exist;  the  sun  appeared  like 
an  arc  lamp  in  the  street  on  a  very  foggy  day,  on  account 
of  the  density  of  the  mist  which  rose  from  the  earth. 

While  humanity  lived  in  that  state,  they  were  not  as  far 
advanced  mentally  as  we  are  now.  They  could  not  see 
things  outside  themselves,  but  they  had  an  inner  percep- 
tion. They  saw  the  soul  qualities  of  all  who  lived  around 
them  and  they  perceived  themselves  as  spiritual  rather  than 
material.  At  that  time  there  were  no  nations  at  all,  but 
humanity  was  one  vast  brotherhood.  All  were  partially 
outside  their  bodies  and  therefore  in  touch  with  the  Uni- 
versal Spirit,  which  has  now  been  obscured  in  the  separate- 
ness  of  egotism  which  cause?  each  man  to  feel  himself  dis- 
tinct and  apart  from  all  the  rest  of  humanity;  where 
brotherhood  is  forgotten  and  selfishness  rules. 

When  any  one  has  progressed  so  far  that  he  appreciates 
the  blessings  of  brotherhood,  where  he  endeavors  to  abolish 
egotism  and  cultivate  altruism,  he  may  go  through  the  rite 
of  baptism.  He  enters  the  water  as  a  symbol  of  his  return 
to  the  ideal  conditions  of  brotherhood  which  existed  when 
all  humanity  lived,  so  to  speak,  in  water.  Therefore,  we 
see  Jesus,  the  herald  of  Universal  Brotherhood,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  minis-try  entering  the  waters  of  the  Jordan 
and  being  baptized  there.  When  he  rose  from  the  waters, 
the  Universal  Spirit  rested  upon  Him  as  a  dove,  and  from 
that  time  on  he  was  not  simply  Jesus,  but  Christ  Jesus, 
the  potential  Savior^of  the  world  imbued  with  the  Univer- 
sal Spirit,  which  shall  eventually  take  away  all  the  evils  of 
selfishness  and  restore  mankind  to  the  blessings  of  brother- 
hood which  will  be  realized  when  the  Universal  Spirit  has 
become  immanent  in  all  mankind. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWER  199 

QUESTION  No.  98. 

If~-  your  teaching  you  state  that  we  stay  for  a  time,  aver- 
aging about  one-third  of  the  length  of  the  earth  life,  in 
Purgatory  in  order  that  our  sins  may  be  expiated  prior  to 
going  to  heaven.  How  then  do  you  reconcile  this  teaching 
with  the  words  of  the  Christ  to  the  dying  thief:  "Today 
thou  shalt  be  luith  me  in  Paradise"  ? 


Answer:  The  New  Testament  was  written  in  Greek,  a 
language  in  which  no  punctuation  marks  are  used.  The 
punctuation  marks  in  our  Bible  have  been  inserted  by  our 
later  Bible  translators,  and  punctuation  often  very  radi- 
cally changes  the  meaning  of  a  sentence,  as  the  following 
story  will  illustrate: 

In  a  prayer  meeting  some  one  handed  in  a  request  which 
the  pastor  read  thus :  "A  sailor  going  to  sea,  his  mother-in- 
law  desires  the  prayers  of  the  congregation  for  his  safe 
return  to  wife  and  child/"'  The  request  was  not  punctu- 
ated at  all,  but  would  imply  that  the  young  man's  mother- 
in-law  was  very  solicitous  to  have  him  return  safely  to  his 
wife  and  child  and  therefore  desired  the  prayers  of  the 
congregation.  Had  the  pastor  read  it  without  the  comma, 
it  would  have  implied  that  the  sailor,  going  to  see  his 
mother-in-law,  desired  the  prayers  of  the  congregation  for 
his  safe  return  to  wife  and  child,  and  one  would  naturally 
think  that  the  lady  in  question  must  be  a  Tartar  when 
it  was  necessary  for  the  young  man  to  ask  the  prayers  of 
the  congregation  before  facing  her.  In  this  case,  if  the 
words  of  Christ  are  read  thus :  "Verily  I  say  unto  thee 
today,  thou  shalt  be  with  me  in  Paradise,'7  they  would 
imply  that  the  thief  would  be  with  the  Christ  at  some 


200  ECSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

future  time  not  defined.  But  where  the  comma  is  placed 
before  the  word  today,  as  in  the  Bible,  it  gives  the  idea 
ordinarily  held  by  people. 

That  this  idea  is  absolutely  wrong  can  be  seen  by  the 
remark  of  the  Christ  just  after  His  resurrection,  when  He 
said  to  the  woman:  "Touch  me  not,  for  I  have  not  yet 
ascended  to  my  Father."  If  He  promised  the  Thief  that 
'lie  should  be  with  Him  in  Paradise  on  the  day  of  the  cruci- 
fixion and  three  days  later  declared  that  Ha  had  not  yet 
been  there,  the  Christ  would  have  been  guilty  of  a  contra- 
diction which,  of  course,  is  an  impossibility.  Placing  of 
the  comma  as  suggested  fully  reconciles  the  meaning  of 
the  two  passages,  and  besides  Jude  tells  us  that  in  the  inter- 
val He  worked  with  the  spirits  in  Purgatory. 


QUESTION  Xo.  99. 

What  is  the  esoteric  meaning  of  the  two  thieves  and  the 
cross ? 


Answer:  Contrary  to  the  ordinarily  accepted  opinion, 
the  four  Gospels  are  not  at  all  the  biography  of  Jesus,  the 
Christ;  they  are  Formulae  of  initiation  of  four  different 
Mystery  Schools,  and  in  order  to  veil  their  esoteric  mean- 


AND  ANSWERS  201 

ing,  the  life  and  ministry  of  the  Christ  is  also  intermingled. 
That  could  be  easily  done  as  all  initiates,  being  cosmic 
characters,  have  similar  experiences.  It  is  truly  said  that 
unto  the  multitude  the  Christ  spoke  in  parables,  but  the 
hidden  meaning  was  given  to  His  disciples  in  private. 
Paul  also  gave  the  milk  to  the  weak  and  the  meat  to  the 
strong  ones.  It  was  never  intended  at  any  time  to  give 
the  hidden  symbols  to  ordinary  people,  or  to  make  the 
Bible  "an  open  book  of  God,"  as  people  nowadays  believe. 
When  reading  in  the  memory  of  nature,  we  find  that  at 
the  time  of  the  crucifixion,  there  were  not  only  two,  but  a 
number,  who  were  crucified.  The  people  of  that  time  meted 
out  capital  punishment  for  the  slightest  offenses  and  there 
were  always  plenty  to  suffer  these  barbar  ous  deaths.  Thus, 
those  who  wanted  to  veil  the  hidden  meaning  of  the  gos- 
pels were  at  no  loss  to  find  something  wherewith  to  fill 
out  the  tale  and  obscure  the  points  which  are  really  vital 
in  the  crucifixion.  The  part  of  the  story  relating  to  the 
thieves  is,  therefore,  a  true  incident,  without  having  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  esoteric  meaning  at  all. 


202  BC8ICEUCTAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  100. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  cross?  Is  it  simply  an  in- 
strument of  torture  as  usually  taught  in  the  orthodox 
religion  ? 


Anstver:  Like  all  other  symbols,  the  meanings  of  the 
cross  are  many.  Plato  gave  one  of  these  meanings  when 
he  said,  "The  Worldsoul  is  crucified,"  that  is  to  say:  We 
have  four  kingdoms  in  the  world — the  mineral,  the  plant, 
the  animal  and  the  man. 

The  mineral  kingdom  ensouls  all  chemical  substance  of 
whatever  kind,  so  that  th^  cross,  of  whatever  material  it  is 
made,  is  first  a  symbol  of  that  kingdom. 

The  upright  lower  limb  of  the  cross  is  a  symbol  of  the 
plant  kingdom  because  the  currents  of  the  group  spirits 
which  give  life  to  the  plants  come  from  the  center  of  the 
earth  where  these  group  ppirits  are  located  and  reach  out 
toward  the  periphery  of  our  planet  and  into  space. 

The  upper  limb  of  the  cross  is  the  symbol  of  man,  be- 
cause the  life  currents  of  the  human  kingdom  pass  down- 
ward from  the  sun  through  the  vertical  spine.  Thus  man 
is  the  inverted  plant,  for  as  the  plant  takes  its  food  through 
the  root,  passing  it  upward,  so  does  the  man  take  his  nour- 
ishment by  way  of  the  hpad,  passing  it  downward.  The 
plant  is  chaste,  pure  and  passionless,  and  stretches  its  cre- 
ative organ,  the  flower,  chastely  and  unashamed  toward  the 
sun,  a  thing  of  beauty  and  delight.  Man  turns  his  passion 
filled  generative  organ  toward  the  earth.  Man  inhales  the 
life  giving  oxygen  and  exhales  the  poisonous  carbon  dioxide. 
The  plant  takes  the  poison  exhaled  by  man,  building  its 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  203 

body  therefrom,  and  returning  to  us  the  elixir  of  life,  the 
cleansed  oxygen. 

Between  the  plant  and  the  human  kingdom  stands  the 
animal  with  the  horizontal  spine,  and  in  the  horizontal 
spine  the  life  currents  of  the  animal  group  spirit  play  as- 
they  circle  around  our  globe.  Therefore  the  horizontal  limb 
of  the  cross  is  the  symbol  of  the  animal  kingdom. 

In  esotericism  the  cross  was  never  looked  upon  as  an  in- 
strument of  torture,  and  it  was  not  until  the  sixth  century 
that  the  crucified  Christ  was  shown  in  pictures.  Previous 
to  that  time  the  symbol  of  the  Christ  was  a  cross  and  a 
lamb  resting  at  its  foot,  to  convey  the  idea  that  at  the 
time  when  the  Christ  was  born  the  sun  at  the  vernal  equi- 
nox crossed  the  equator  in  the  sign  Aries,  the  Lamb.  The 
symbols  of  the  different  religions  have  always  been  made 
in  that  way.  At  the  time  when  the  sun  by  precession 
crossed  the  vernal  equinox  in  the  sign  Taurus,  the  Bull,  a 
religion  was  founded  in  Egypt  where  they  worshiped  the 
Bull  Apis  in  the  same  sense  that  we  worship  the  Lamb  of 
God.  At  a  much  earlier  date,  we  hear  of  the  Norse  God 
Thor  driving  his  twin  goats  across  the  sky.  That  was  at 
the  time  when  the  vernal  equinox  was  in  the  sign  Gemini, 
the  Twins.  At  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  vernal 
equinox  was  in  about  i  degrees  of  Aries,  the  Lamb,  there- 
fore our  Savior  was  called  the  Lamb  of  God.  There  was 
a  dispute  in  the  earlier  centuries  regarding  the  propriety 
of  having  the  lamb  as  a  symbol  of  our  Savior.  Some 
claimed  that  the  vernal  equinox  at  His  birth  was  really  in 
the  sign  Pisces,  the  Fishes,  and  that  the  symbol  of  our 
Savior  should  have  been  a  fish.  It  is  in  memory  of  that 
dispute  that  the  bishop's  mitre  still  takes  the  form  of  the 
hoad  of  a  fish. 


204  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  Xo.  101. 

Could  not  tlie  mission  of  Christ  liave  been  accomplished 
without  such  a  drastic  method  as  the  crucifixion? 


Answer:  It  could,  of  course,  have  been  accomplished 
without  the  specific  method  of  crucifixion,  hut  it  was  an 
absolute  necessity  that  the  blood  should  flow.  There  are 
various  grades  of  teachers  and  they  require  different  condi- 
tions for  the  accomplishment  of  their  task.  Some  teachers, 
like  Moses  and  the  Buddha,  come  to  a  nation  and  help  it 
to  a  certain  point,  they  themselves  growing  thereby;  and 
both  of  the  teachers  mentioned  attained  to  the  point  in  their 
own  development  where  their  bodies  became  luminous.  We 
hear  how  the  face  of  Moses  shone  so  that  it  became  neces- 
sary for  him  to  use  a  veil.  The  Buddha  became  luminous 
at  the  time  of  his  death.  The  Christ  attained  the  stage  of 
luminosity  at  the  time  of  His  transfiguration,  and  it  is 
very  significant  that  the  most  important  part  of  His  work, 
His  suffering  and  death,  took  place  after  the  event  of  the 
transfiguration.  And  while  it  became  necessary  for  Moses, 
Elijah,  Buddha  and  other  previous  teachers  to  be  born  in 
a  physical  body  again  and  again,  in  order  to  bear  the  sins 
of  their  people,  the  Christ  has  only  appeared  once  in  a 
physical  body  and  will  not  need  again  to  take  upon  Him- 
self such  an  instrument.  For  when  the  spirit  leaves  the 
body  in  the  natural  way  it  takes  along  certain  impurities 
as  it  slowly  withdraws  from  the  congealing  blood.  Even 
in  such  a  pure  body  as  the  body  of  Jesus,  there  were  impuri- 
ties, and  the  violent  death  which  caused  the  Wood  to  run 
liberated  the  Ego  of  Christ  from  the  blood  with  a  quick 
wrench,  leaving  behind  whatever  impurity  there  may  have 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  205 

been,  so  that  the  Christ  emerged  from  the  body  of  Jesus 
unsullied  and  without  the  tie  of  destiny  usually  attendant 
on  life  in  the  dense  body. 

On  the  same  principle  it  is  a  fact  that  although  at  the 
present  time  we  have  wars  that  are  to  be  regretted  from 
the  mere  human  standpoint,  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  which 
is  patent  to  the  occultist  that  these  wars  have  cleansed  the 
blood  of  the  race  considerably,  so  that  gradually  humanity 
is  becoming  less  and  less  passionate  and  more  and  more 
Spiritual. 


The  animals  of  today,  though  behind  us  in  evo- 
lution, are  on  a  higher  spiral  and  while  we  now  are  suffer- 
ing under  the  law  of  consequence,  because  of  having  to 
overcome  our  passions  in  our  own  strength,  the  animals 
are  being  helped  and  held  in  check  by  their  group  spirits. 
And  when  they  reach  the  human  stage  in  the  Jupiter 
Period,  they  will  be  a  higher  humanity,  free  from  the  pas- 
sions which  have  made  this  world  such  a  sorrowful  place. 
Thus  nature  always  transmutes  whatever  evil  we  may 
commit  into  a  higher  good. 

Answering  the  question,  we  may  therefore  say  that  in 
the  case  of  Christ  the  violent  death  was  necessary  because 
it  enabled  the  Christ  spirit  to  withdraw  from  the  body  of 
Jesus  without  retaining  any  of  the  impurities  attached  to 
that  merely  human  vehicle.' 


206  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION-  No.  102. 

According  to  the  Rosicrucian  teaching,  when  will  Christ 
come  again  ? 

Answer:  The  Bible  says  truly  that  the  "day  and  the 
hour  knoweth  no  man,"  and  the  people  who  have  been 
trying  to  fix  a  certain  date  or  a  certain  year  for  the  Second 
Coming  have  entirely  misunderstood  the  object  of  the 
Christ's  mission  on  earth.  His  teaching  was  given  to  hu- 
manity in  order  that  the  law,  "An  eya  for  an  eye  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth"  might  be  abolished — that  the  law  of  fear 
(of  God)  might  be  swallowed  up  by  the  law  of  love.  "The 
law  and  the  prophets  were  until  Christ,"  it  is  said,  but  we 
know  that  even  today  law  is,  and  is  necessary.  Therefore, 
it  is  evident  that  law  was  not  abolished  at  the  physical 
coming  of  Christ.  It  is  the  coming  of  Christ  into  "the 
within,"  the  inner  nature  of  man,  that  is  to  abolish  law. 
Paul  speaks  of  this  advent  as  the  "Christ  being  formed  in 
ye,"  and  until  the  Christ  has  been  formed  in  us  we  are  not 
ready  for  the  Second  Coming.  Angelus  Silesius  says: 

"Though  Christ  a  thousand  times  in  Bethlehem  be  born, 
And  not  within  thyself,  thy  soul  will  be  forlorn. 
The  cross  on  Golgotha  thou  lookest  to  in  vain, 
Unless  within  thyself  it  be  set  up  again." 

The  Second  Coming  of  Christ  depends  upon  how  soon 
a  sufficient  number  of  people  have  become  Christ-like  and 
attuned  to  the  Christ  principle,  so  that,  as  tuning  forks  of 
the  same  pitch  sing  together  when  one  is  struck,  they  will 
be  able  to  respond  to  the  Christ  vibrations  that  will  be  set 
up  at  the  return  of  the  Savior.  Therefore,  this  event  is  not 
to  be  calculated.  Every  time  we  endeavor  to  imitate  Christ 
and  fulfil  His  teachings,  we  are  hastening  His  Coming;  so 
let  us  thus  strive. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  207    ' 

QUESTION  Xo.  103. 

What  is  meant  l>y  the  saying  that  Christ  was  made  a  high 
priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec? 


Answer:  We  are  told  that  this  Melchisedec  was  king  of 
Salem  and  also  a  high  priest.  We  are  told  that  his  priest- 
hood was  far  above  tha't  of  Aaron,  for  it  was  unchangeable, 
while  that  of  Aaron  and  the  Levites  was  subject  to  frequent 
change. 

During  the  times  of  which  we  have  records  in  history, 
there  has  always  been  a  division  of  the  temporal  and  the 
ecclesiastical  powers.  Moses  was  the  temporal  ruler  and 
leader  of  the  Jewish  people,  while  Aaron  was  the  priest 
who  looked  after  their  spiritual  welfare,  and  down  the 
ages  this  division  of  the  church  and  the  state  has  ever  been 
apparent,  at  times  causing  great  strife  and  bloodshed,  for 
their  interests  seem  ever  to  be  diametrically  opposite.  But 
at  the  time  of  this  Melchisedec,  king  of  Salem,  which  inter- 
preted means  "peace"  there  was  no  such  division,  the  two 
offices  were  combined  in  one  individual.  The  story  of  Mel- 
chisedec, a  Being  without  earthly  pedigree,  refers,  of  course, 
to  the  time  in  early  Atlantis  when  humanity  had  not  yet 
been  divided  into  warring  nations,  but  were  one  vast, 
peaceful  brotherhood,  and  the  leaders  of  the  people  were 
Divine  Beings,  who  were  both  kings  and  priests. 

The  later  division  of  church  and  state  has  been  one  of 
the  most  fruitful  sources  of  enmity  and  war  among  human- 
ity, for  each  of  these  powers  has  striven  for  supremacy  over 
the  other,  while  in  reality  there  should  be  no  prejudice,  for 
no  one  who  is  not  as  spiritual  as  a  priest  should  be  is  fit  to 
rule  as  a  king,  and  no  one  who  is  not  as  wise  and  just  as 


208  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

a  king  should  be  is  fit  to  have  the  spiritual  guidance  of 
humanity  as  {he  priests  have.  When  these  qualities  are 
combined  in  one  leader  again,  the  reign  of  universal  peace 
and  brotherhood  will  become  a  fact.  The  Christ  has  been 
heralded  as  such  a  leader,  capable  of  uniting  church  and 
state  as  king  and  priest  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec. 
His  Second  Coming  inaugurates  the  millennium,  the  age 
of  peace  and  joy,  where  the  symbolical  New  Jerusalem,  the 
city  of  peace  (for  Jer-u-salem  means  "there  shall  be 
peace"),  reigns  over  the  nations  of  the  earth,  united  into 
one  universal  brotherhood.  There  shall  be  Peace  on  Earth 
and  Goodwill  among  Men. 


QUESTION  No.  104. 

What  did  Christ  mean  when  He  said,  "All  who  came  be- 
fore Me  were  thieves  and  robbers"? 


Answer:  We  read  in  the  Bible  about  two  great  cities, 
strangely  similar  yet  directly  opposite.  -  One  is  the  city  of 
Babylon,  the  birthplace  of  confusion,  where  men  ceased  to 
be  brothers  and  separated  from  one  another.  It  lies  upon 
seven  hills  by  a  river  and  is  ruled  over  by  a  king,  Lucifer — 
the  "day  star" — the  light  giver.  His  fall  from  heaven  is 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  209 

lamented  exceedingly  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Isaiah, 
and  later  on  we  hear  of  the  fall  of  that  great  city,  which 
has  become  an  abomination,  is  called  a  harlot,  having 
caused  war,  trouble  and  desolation  among  all  the  people,  of 
the  earth. 

Then,  in  supreme  antithesis,  we  are  told  of  another  city 
called  the  Ne\v  Jerusalem,  which  occupies  the  honored 
position  as  bride.  In  that  city  there  is  not  a  flowing  river 
but  a  sea  of  glass.  It  also  lies  upon  seven  hills,  is  ruled 
over  by  another  light  giver  who  is  called  "the  light  of  the 
world/'  and  it  is  a  city  of  peace  wThere  the  gates  are  never 
closed  although  the  precious  Tree  of  Life  is  within.  This 
city  is  not  a  city  of  this  wrorld,  but  a  city  which  has  come 
down  from  heaven. 

To  understand  this  symbology,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back 
into  the  far  distant  past  when  man-in-the-making  had  not 
yet  attained  the  development  he  has  today.  When  he  first 
came  upon  this  earth  the  dense  body  was  built  in  the 
Polarian  Epoch,  and  was  vitalized  by  the  interpenetration 
of  a  vital  body  in  the  Hyperborean  Epoch.  At  that  time 
man  was  like  the  Angels,  male-female,  a  complete  creative 
unit,  able  to  create  from  himself  by  projecting  his  whole 
creative  force — which  is  love. 

Later  it  became  necessary  for  man  lo  evolve  a  brain,  and 
in  order  to  accomplish  that  object  one-half  of  his  creative 
force  was  turned  inward  in  order  to  build  the  necessary 
organs.  From  that  time  on,  man  must  seek  the  coopera- 
tion of  some  one  having  the  other  half  of  the  sex  force 
available  for  propagation,  Now  he  loves  selfishly  to  obtain 
the  cooperation  of  another  in  propagation;  the  other  half 
of  the  creative  force  wherewith  he  built  his  brain  and 
larynx  he  also  uses  selfishly  to  think,  because  he  cfesires  to 
obtain  knowledge. 


£10  ROSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Previously  man  had  projected  his  whole  creative  force 
without  reserve,  unselfishly.  Since  the  division  of  the  sex 
force  man  has  eventually  become  selfish  and  therefore  by 
attraction  a  prey  to  others  of  like  nature. 

The  Angels  were  the  humanity  of  the  Moon  Period  and 
have  since  attained  to  their  present  high  development,  but 
as  in  every  great  company  there  are  stragglers,  so  also  in 
the  case  of  the  Angels  there  were  some  who  did  not  attain 
— a  class  of  beings  which  were  behind  the  Angels  but  above 
humanit}r.  They  were  in  a  sad  state,  for  they  could  not 
follow  the  present  development  of  the  Angels  and  neither 
could  they  sink  as  low  into  matter  as  man.  They  could 
not,  as  the  Angels,  dispense  with  a  brain,  yet  they  were 
incapable  of  building  one  for  themselves,  so  when  humanity 
evolved  the  brain  and  spinal  cord  they  saw  an  opportunity 
in  woman,  who  expresses  the  negative  pole  of  the  creative 
force,  imagination,  the  faculty  which  enables  her  to  build  a 
body  in  the  womb.  In  order  to  gain  access  to  her  con- 
sciousness this  intelligence  took  advantages  of  a  perplexity 
then  disturbing  the  woman  on  account  of  her  exercise  of 
the  imaginative  faculty. 

At  that  time  the  eyes  of  humanity  had  not  yet  been 
opened;  they  were  spiritual  beings,  not  quite  conscious  of 
the  possession  of  a  physical  body.  The  woman  was  the 
first  to  dimly  observe  that  she  and  others  possessed  such 
an  instrument,  and  die  had  observed  that  at  certain  times 
some  of  her  friends  whom  she  had  previously  perceived  as 
having  this  physical  appendage,  had  lost  it,  so  she  was 
troubled.  From  the  Angels  she  could  obtain  no  informa- 
tion, but  this  intelligence  which  appeared  within  herself 
in  the  serpentine  spinal  cord,  enlightened  her,  and  "the 
serpent  Said  unto  the  woman,  'Hath  God  said,  ye  shall  not 
eat  of  every  Tree  in  the  Garden  ?' "  to  which  she  answered 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEEG  211 

S 

that  they  had  been  forbidden  "to  eat  of  the  Tree  of  Knowl- 
edge" under  penalty  of  death.  But  the  serpent  said:  "Ye 
shall  not  surely  die,  for  God  knows  that  in  the  day  ye  eat 
thereof,  then  your  eyes  shall  be  opened  and  ye  shall  be  as 
gods,  knowing  good  and  evil."  The  woman  secured  the  co- 
operation of  the  man  according  to  the  instructions  of  Luci- 
fer, the  light  giver,  and  since  then  their  eyes  have  been 
opened,  they  have  known  good  and  evil.  But  prior  to  that 
time  man  had  been  unconscious  of  the  possession  of  his 
body;  it  had  fallen  away  from  him  at  times,  as  the  leaf 
falls  from  the  tree,  without  inconveniencing  or  disturbing 
him,  for  his  consciousness  had  been  focused  in  the  Spiritual 
World  at  all  times.  But  the  Lucifer  spirits  desired  a  power 
over  him,  a  foothold  in  his  brain  and  spinal  cord.  They 
incited  him  to  break  away  from  the  yoke  of  the  Angels  and 
take  the  creative  function  in  his  own  hands.  By  the  oft 
repeated  and  ignorant  abuse  of  that  faculty  the  conscious- 
ness of  man  was  withdrawn  from  the  Spiritual  Worlds  and 
focused  in  the  Physical  World.  Then  came  death  in  all 
its  present  terrible  aspect,  for  man  now  regards  this  earth 
life  as  the  only  real  life.  When  that  ends,  he  enters  an 
existence  of  which  he  knows  nothing  and  which  he  conse- 
quently fears. 

Thus,  on  account  of  listening  to  Lucifer,  the  fake  light 
giver,  man  has  become  subject  to  sorrow,  pain  and  death. 
He  has  been  robbed  of  his  innocence  and  peace.  The  Christ 
came  into  the  world  to  save  humanity  from  sin,  sorrow  ani 
death.  Therefore  He  called  Himself  the  true  light,  and  tho 
others,  who  had  come  before,  He  characterized  as  thieves 
and  robbers,  for  they  had  robbed  man  of  the  spiritual  sight 
though  they  had  enlightened  him  in  the  physical  sense. 


212  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  105. 

What  did  the  Christ  mean  when  lie  said,  "Whosoever 
shall  not  receive  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child  shall 
not  enter  therein"? 


Answer:  In  the  world  around  us  we  see  the  kingdom 
of  men,  where  every  one  is  endeavoring  to  maintain  his 
own  position  and  depends  upon  his  own  ideas  and  his  own 
self-assertion  to  hold  that  position  against  all  comers. 
When  anything  new  is  presented  to  him,  his  mental  atti- 
tude is  usually  tinged  with  skepticism.  He  fears  to  be 
deceived. 

The  attitude  of  a  little  child  with  regard  to  what  it  sees 
or  hears  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  the  position  of  its  elders. 
The  little  child  has  no  overwhelming  sense  of  its  own  su- 
perior knowledge,  but  is  frankly  ignorant  and  therefore 
eminently  teachable,  and  it  was  to  this  trait  that  the  Savior 
referred  in  the  passage  quoted. 

When  we  enter  the  higher  life,  we  must  first  forget 
everything  that  we  knew  in  the  world.  We  must  com- 
mence to  look  at  things  in  an  entirely  different  way,  and 
when  a  new  teaching  is  brought  before  us  we  must  endeavor 
to  receive  it  regardless  of  other  facts  previously  observed. 
This  in  order  that  we  may  be  perfectly  unbiased.  Of 
course,  we  are  not  supposed  to  believe  offhand  that  "black* 
is  white,"  but  if  some  one  seriously  asserts  that  an  object 
which  we  have  hitherto  regarded  as  black  is  really  white, 
our  mind  should  be  sufficiently  open  to  prevent  us  from 
passing  judgment  at  once  and  saying,  "Why,  I  know  that 
that  object  is  black."  We  should  be  willing  to  reexamine 
the  object  to  see  if  there  may  not  be  a  point  of  view  whence 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  213 

that  thing  which  we  have  thought  black  appears  to  be  white. 
Only  when  we  have  made  thorough  examination  and  have 
found  that  the  thing  is  really  black  from  whatever  point 
of  view  may  we  return  to  our  previous  opinion. 

There  is  nothing  so  remarkable  about  a  child  as  the  flex- 
ible attitude  of  its  mind  which  renders  it  so  teachable,  and 
the  pupil  who  endeavors  to  live  the  higher  life  should  al- 
ways aim  to  keep  his  mind  in  that  fluid ic  state,  for  as  soon 
as  our  ideas  have  become  set  and  incapable  of  being 
changed,  our  progress  ceases.  That  was  the  great  truth 
which  the  Christ  was  endeavoring  to  present  to  his  hearers 
v/hen  he  made  the  remark  which  has  occasioned  the  ques- 
tion. 


QUESTION  Ko.  106. 

Did  not  Jesus  eat  fish?     Why  then  are  the  Eosicrucians 
vegetarians? 


Answer:  After  the  Resurrection  the  Christ  at  one  time 
appeared  among  His  disciples  while  they  were  in  a  locked 
room.  They  did  not  recognize  Him  at  once  and  did  not 
believe  that  His  was  a  material  body.  But  the  vehicle  in 
which  He  appeared  was  the  vital  body  of  Jesus,  and  it  was 


214  BOS1CRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

possible  for  Him,,  as  for  anyone  else  capable  of  functioning 
in  that  vehicle,  to  draw  matter  of  the  chemical  region 
around  Himself  and  build  a  perfectly  tangible,  dense  body 
in  a  moment.  In  order  to  convince  them  that  He  was  as 
usual,  He  asked  for  something  to  eat  and  was  given  a 
piece  of  a  honeycomb  and  some  fish.  It  is  stated  that  he 
ate,  but  not  that  he  ate  the  fish,  and  one  who  had  been 
brought  up  among  strict  vegetarians  like  the  Essenes 
would  not  have  eaten  the  fish  any  more  than  he  would 
have  eaten  flesh  if  it  had  been  set  before  him. 

It  is  also  related  of  the  Buddha  that  he  died  after  gorging 
himself  upon  boar's  flesh,  which  is  highly  amusing  to  asy- 
one  aware  of  the  fact  that  he  taught  his  disciples  the 
simple  and  harmless  life — to  sustain  the  body  upon  the 
purest  and  best  foods  as  they  come  directly  from  the  ground 
— and  was  moved  to  the  greatest  pity  at  the  sight  of  suffer- 
ing on  the  part  of  man  or  beast.  The  esoteric  student 
understands  that  in  olden  times  the  boar  was  a  symbol  of 
the  esoteric  knowledge.  One  may  give  of  his  knowledge; 
the  more  we  give  the  more  we  have — at  least  the  same 
amount  of  knowledge  always  remains.  This  truth  was 
taught  in  a  symbol  of  tie  Xorse  mythology :  In  Valhall 
the  warriors  who  had  fought  the  good  fight  were  seated 
around  tables  feasting  upon  the  flesh  of  a  boar,  which  was 
so  constituted  that  as  often  as  they  cut  a  part  of  its  flesh 
away  the  flesh  grew  out  at  once,  so  that  there  was  always 
plenty,  no  matter  how  much  was  taken  or  how  many  ate. 
The  Buddha  in  his  earth  life  had  gorged  himself  upon  this 
sacred  knowledge,  and  when  he  died  he  was  full  thereof. 

Nevertheless,  the  inquirer  has  a  wrong  idea.  The  Rosi- 
crucians  do  not  teach  that  everyone  should  be  a  vegetarian 
at  once.  In  fact  they  teach  that  the  vegetarian  diet  gen- 
erates an  abundance  of  energy,  much  more  than  flesh  foods. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  215 

This  energy  is  not  only  physical  but  spiritual,  so  that  if 
a  man  leads  a  sedentary  life  and  is  of  a  material  disposi- 
tion, engaged,  perhaps,  in  sordid  business  transactions  or 
in  other  lines  of  strictly  material  endeavor,  this  spiritual 
energy  can  find  no  vent  and  is  apt  to  cause  systemic  dis- 
turbances. Only  those  who  live  an  active,  outdoor  life, 
where  the  abundance  of  energy  generated  by  the  vegetarian 
food  can  be  thrown  off,  or  who  transmute  that  energy  into 
spiritual  endeavor,  can  thrive  on  the  vegetarian  diet.  Be- 
sides, we  recognize  that  the  heredity  of  many  generations 
has  made  man  partly  carniverous,  so  that  in  the  case  of 
most  people  the  change  from  a  mixed  diet  to  vegetables 
should  be  gradual.  The  diet  which  suits  one  man  is  not 
fitted  for  another,  vide  the  old  proverb  that  "one  man's 
meat  is  another  man's  poison,"  and  no  hard  and  fast  rules 
can  be  laid  down  which  will  apply  equally  to  all  people. 
Therefore,  everything  that  we  eat  as  well  as  everything  else 
connected  with  our  personality  should  be  determined  by 
ourselves  individually. 

The  Bible  says  truly  that  it  is  not  that  which  goeth  into 
the  mouth  that  defileth  us.  If  we  crave  and  support  our- 
selves upon  loathsome  food,  it  is  the  craving  tliat  is  the  sin 
and  not  the  food  itself.  If  a  man  is  in  a  place  where  he 
cannot  obtain  the  pure  foods  which  he  desires  and  craves, 
he  ought  to  take  the  food  which  is  obtainable,  even  flesh 
food,  without  loathing,  just  as  thankfully  as  he  takes  the 
pure  food.  It  will  not  defile  him  because  of  his  attitude. 
of  mind, 


216  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  107. 

//  Christ  fed  the  multitude  with  fish,  why  is  it  wrong  for 
us  to  use  them,  or  even  flesh,  as  food? 


Answer:  It  is  the  nature  of  a  beast  of  prey  to  eat  any 
animal  that  comes  in  its  path,  and  its  organs  are  such  that 
it  must  have  that  kind  of  a  diet  to  exist,  but  everything  is 
in  a  stage  of  becoming;  it  is  always  changing  to  something 
higher.  Man,  in  his  earlier  stages  of  unfoldment,  was  also 
like  the  beasts  of  prey  in  certain  respects;  however,  he  is 
to  become  God-like  and  thus  lie  must  cease  to  destroy  at 
some  time  in  order  that  lie  may  commence  to  create.  The 
Jews  were  still  in  a  position  where  their  animal  natures 
were  so  much  to  the  fore  that  they  had  exceedingly  small 
ideas  of  altruism.  They  clung  closely  to  the  law,  "An  eye 
for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,"  and  were  not  at  all 
merciful  in  any  respect.  We  have  gone  a  little  further 
along  the  path  of  evolution,  and  altruism  is  coming  to  the 
fore  more  and  more. 

\Ve  have  been  taught  that  there  is  no  life  in  the  universe 
but  the  life  of  God.  That  "in  Him  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being."  That  His  life  animates  everything  that 
is  and  therefore  we  naturally  understand  that  as  soon  as 
we  take  life  we  are  destroying  the  form  built  by  God  for 
His  manifestation.  The  lower  animals  are  evolving  spirits 
and  have  sensibilities.  It  is  their  desire  for  experience 
that  causes  them  to  build  their  various  forms,  and  when  we 
take  their  forms  away  from  them  we  deprive  them  of  their 
opportunity  for  gaining  experience.  We  hinder  their  evo- 
lution instead  of  helping  them.  It  is  excusable  in  the 
cannibal,  who  knows  no  better,  when  he  eats  his  fellow 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  21? 

men.  We  now  regard  cannibalism  with  horror,  and  the 
day  will  also  come  when  we  shall  feel  a  like  disgust  at  the 
thought  of  making  our  stomachs  the  burying  ground  of 
the  carcasses  of  murdered  animals. 

It  is  natural  that  we  sliould  desire  the  very  best  of  food, 
but  every  animal  body  has  in  it  the  poisons  of  decay.  The 
venous  blood  is  filled  with  carbon  dioxide  and  other  noxious 
products  on  their  way  to  the  kidneys  or  the  pores  of  the 
skin  to  be  expelled  as  urine  or  perspiration.  These  loath- 
some substances  are  in  every  part  of  the  flesh  and  when 
we  eat  such  food  we  are  filling  our  own  bodies  with  toxic 
poisons.  Much  sickness  is  due  to  our  use  of  flesh  foods. 

When  we  cry  to  the  Bible  as  authority  for  flesh  eating 
we  should  also  be  willing  to  follow  its  injunctions  and  stop 
eating  pork,  which  is  the  most  horrible  food  of  all.  It  is 
a  notable  fact  that  the  orthodox  Jews  who  abstain  from  the 
foods  interdicted  in  the  Bible  are  immune  from  consump- 
tion and  cancer. 

In  a  great  many  places  where  the  Bible  speaks  of  "meat," 
it  is  very  plain  that  flesh  food  is  not  meant.  The  chapter 
in  Genesis  where  man's  food  is  first  allotted  to  him  says 
that  he  should  eat  of  every  tree  and  herb  bearing  seed,  "and 
to  you.it  shall  be  for  meat."  The  most  evolved  people  at  all 
times  have  abstained  from  flesh  foods.  We  see,  for  instance, 
Daniel,  who  was  a  holy  man  and  a  wise  man,  beg  that  he 
might  not  be  forced  to  eat  meat,  but  that  he  and  his  com- 
panions be  given  pulse.  The  children  of  Israel  in  the 
wilderness  are  spoken  of  as  "lusting  after  flesh,"  and  their 
God  is  angry  with  them  in  consequence. 

There  is  an  esoteric  meaning  to  the  feeding  of  the  mul- 
titude where  fish  was  used  as  food,  but  looking  to  the  purely 
material  aspect  we  may  sum  up  the  points  made  in  our 
answer  by  reiterating  that  we  shall  some  time  outgrow 


218  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

flesh  and  fish  eating  as  we  have  risen  above  cannibalism. 
Whatever  license  may  have  been  given  in  the  barbaric  past 
will  disappear  in  the  altruistic  future,  when  more  refined 
sensibilities  shall  have  awakened  us  to  a  fuller  sense  of 
the  horrors  involved  in  the  gratification  of  a  carnivorous 
taste. 

For  a  very  full  presentation  of  the  question,  "Does  the 
Bible  justify  Flesh  Eating,"  we  would  refer  the  inquirer 
to  a  little  pamphlet  by  that  name  issued  by  the  Unity 
Society  of  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  which  gives  the  pro  and 
the  con  with  great  impartiality,  and  shows  that  it  was 
only  as  a  concession  to  the  before  mentioned  lust  for  flesh 
that  the  practice  was  tolerated  at  all. 


QUESTION  Xo.  108. 

Please  explain  why  the  fatted  calf  was  not  killed  for  the 
righteous  son  instead  of  the  prodigal.  Was  that  not  giving 
a  reward  for  wrong  doing  ? 


Answer:  The  story  of  the  prodigal  son  was  a  parable 
whereby  the  Christ  intended  to  teach  a  lesson  and  not  an 
actual  fact.  It  is  a  story  which  tells  of  the  spirit's  pil- 
grimage through  matter.  There  are  different  classes  of 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

spirits.  Some,  but  not  all,  have  gone  into  the  school  of 
experience,  the  world.  They  have  descended  from  their 
high  estate  in  the  World  of  God  gradually  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  sea  of  matter  which  blinds  them.  At  last 
they  find  themselves  immeshed  in  the  dense  matter  of  the 
Physical  World.  That  is  the  turning  point  where  they 
wake  up;  where  the  unconscious  path  of  involution  ends; 
where  self-consciousness  is  attained  plus  a  consciousness  of 
the  world  without.  But  the  spirit  within  is  not  content 
to  remain  in  this  world.  Re-awakened  to  a  sense  of  its 
inherent  divinity  it  feels  drawn  anew  to  the  highest  spheres, 
and  says  "I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father." 

Then  comes  the  toil  of  stripping  off  the  various  vehicles 
in  which  it  has  become  immeshed  and  of  raising  itself  once 
more  to  the  conscious  communion  with  God.  While  en- 
gaged in  this  arduous  task  "the  Father  meets  it  a  long  way 
off'';  the  still  small  voice  from  within  begins  to  speak  and 
tell  of  the  heavenly  glories  and,  at  last,  when  either  the 
evolution  of  humanity  has  been  completed  or  the  single 
spirit  has  taken  the  short  cut  of  initiation,  there  is  a  re- 
union with  God  and  the  other  brothers  who  have  not  yet 
gone  out  into  the  school  of  experience.  Naturally  there  is 
more  rejoicing  over  the  return  of  one  who  has  fought  the 
good  fight  and  has  come  back  to  his  heavenly  home,  than 
over  the  one  who  has  not  yet  sought  to  improve  his  oppor- 
tunity. 


220  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  109. 

Why  did  the  Lord  commend  the  unjust  steward  as  re- 
lated in  the  sixtcentli  chapter  of  St.  Luke? 


Answer:  The  inquirer  should  read  the  chapter  care- 
full}^.  We  are  told  ot?  an  unfaithful  steward  who  was 
brought  before  his  master,  the  latter  being  suspicious  that 
his  accounts  were  not  quite  right.  This  unfaithful  steward 
made  a  bargain  with  the  debtors  of  his  master  to  secure 
himself  against  tne  day  of  discharge  from  his  position.  It 
is  said  in  verse  8  that  "the  lord  commended  the  unjust 
steward."  When  he  rendered  his  accounts  he  must  have 
fixed  them  so  skilfully  that  his  master  was  deceived,  for 
the  "lord"  of  the  man — his  master — was  the  one  who  com- 
mended him,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the  word 
"lord"  is  spelled  with  a  small  letter,  whereas  the  capital 
letter  is  always  used  where  the  Christ  is  signified. 


QUESTION  No.  110. 

Please  explain  what  is  meant  ~by  sinning  against  the  Holy 
Ghost. 


'Answer:     Speaking  generally,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  cre- 
ative power  of  God.     For  confirmation,  remember  the  pas- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  221 

sage  in  the  creed  "Conceived  by  the  Holy  Spirit/'  which 
Gabriel  said  to  Mary  should  come  upon  her.  By  that  all 
that  is  has  been  brought  into  being,  and  it  is  a  ray  from 
that  attribute  of  God  which  is  used  by  men  for  perpetuation 
of  the  race.  When  that  is  abused,  that  is  to  say,  when  it 
is  used  for  sense  gratification,  whether  in  solitary  or  asso- 
ciated vice,  with  or  without  the  legal  marriage,  that  is  the 
sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit.  That  sin,  we  are  told,  is  not 
forgiven;  it  must  be  expiated.  Humanity  as  a  whole  is 
now  suffering  for  that  sin.  The  debilitated  bodies,  the 
sickness  that  we  see  around  us,  has  been  caused  by  cen- 
turies of  abuse,  and  until  we  learn  to  subdue  our  passions 
there  can  be  no  true  health  among  the  human  race.  We 
have  been  born  of  parents  who  thought  that  it  was  right  to 
gratify  their  passions  at  any  and  all  times.  In  consequence 
we  suffer  now,  and  by  our  attitude  toward  the  sex  question 
most  of  us  are  at  the  present  time  conferring  the  same 
maladies  upon  our  children.  Thus  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
are  being  visited  upon  the  children  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  will  continue  to  bring  sorrow  and  suffering 
until  we  shall  understand  that  every  child  has  a  right  to  be 
well  born  and  to  receive  the  proper  physical  conditions 
during  the  period  of  antenatal  life, 


222  BQSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  111. 
Is  the  Christian  creed  based  upon  divine  authority? 


Answer:  There  are  three  forms  of  the  Christian  creed. 
One  of  them  is  known  as  the  Apostle's  Creed,  although  not 
composed  by  the  apostles,  but  supposed  to  embody  their 
beliefs.  Another  creed  was  formulated  and  adopted  at  the 
Council  of  Nice  and  is  called  the  Nicean  Creed.  The 
Atlianasian  Creed  was  of  still  later  date.  They  have  no 
more  divine  authority  than  any  other  contention  of  men 
concerning  the  Bible. 

The  Bible  itself  gives  a  creed,  however,  in  the  passage 
which  states  that  tJiere  is  no  other  name  given  except  the 
name  of  Christ  Jesus  whereby  men  may  be  saved,  and  this 
is  in  harmony  with  the  occult  teaching,  for  Jehovah  was  the 
author  of  all  the  old  Race  Religions  where  the  fear  of  God 
was  pitted  against  the  desires  of  the  flesh  and  a  law  was 
imposed  upon  man  to  curb  desire.  Race  Religions  act 
educationally  upon  the  desire  nature  by  the  means  stated, 
but  will  in  time  be  superseded  by  the  Religion  of  Christ. 
This  religion  of  brotherhood  and  love  will  cast  out  the  fear 
engendered  by  the  law  of  Jehovah.  It  will  endeavor  to  do 
away  with  nations,  with  their  laws,  with  struggle  and 
strife,  by  working  upon  the  vital  body  so  that  humanity 
shall  be  actuated  entirely  by  love  instead  of  by  Jaw.  This  is 
not  the  ultimate,  however.  When  the  kingdom  shall  have 
been  fully  established,  He  is  to  give  it  over  to  the  Father. 
The  Religion  of  the  Father  will  be  something  higher  even 
than  the  Religion  of  the  Son. 


QUESTIONS  AND  AXSWEES  223 

QUESTION  No.  112. 

How  do  you  reconcile  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins? 


Answer:  The  inability  to  believe  in  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  has  caused  many  to  believe  exclusively  in  the  law  of 
cause  and  effect,  as  taught  in  eastern  countries  under  the 
name  Karma.  There  are  also  many  who  think  that,  be- 
cause eastern  religions  teach  that  law  and  the  law  of  rebirth 
more  clearly  than  the  western  religion,  Christianity,  these 
eastern  religions  are  better  and  more  scientific  than  the 
western  religion,  which  teaches,  as  popularly  interpreted, 
that  the  Christ  died  for  our  sins  and  that  in  consequence 
belief  in  Him  will  bring  us  forgiveness. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  Christian  teaching 
also  enunciates  the  doctrine  that  "as  we  sow  so  shall  we 
also  reap,"  and  thus  it  teaches  both  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  Both,  of  these  laws  are 
vitally  operative  in  the  unfoldment  of  humanity,  and  there 
are  good  reasons  why  the  earlier  eastern  religions  have 
only  one  part  of  the  complete  teaching  which  is  found  in 
the  Christian  religion. 

In  those  early  days  when  the  religions  of  the  East  were 
given  to  humanity,  mankind  were  still  more  spiritual  in 
nature  than  the  material  beings  of  the  present  day  Western 
World.  They  knew  that  we  live  many  lives  in  different 
shapes  and  forms  here  upon  this  earth.  In  the  East  today 
they  are  yet  thoroughly  imbued  with  that  idea,  and  as  a 
consequence  they  are  exceedingly  indolent.  They  are  more 
concerned  with  thoughts  of  Nirvana — the  invisible  world — 


224:  50SICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

where  they  may  rest  in  peace  and  joy,  than  with  taking 
advantage  of  their  present  material  resources  for  advance- 
ment. As  a  consequence,  their  country  is  arid  and  waste, 
their  crops  are  small  and  often  destroyed  hy  a  scorching 
sun  and  devastating  flood.  They  suffer  famine,  they  die 
\)j  millions,  hut  although  they  teach  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect,  they  seem  to  he  unaware  that  their  miserable  condi- 
tions are  brought  about  by  indolence  and  indifference  to 
material  things.  For  naturally,  when  they  have  not  worked 
here  they  have  nothing  to  assimilate  in  the  heaven  life 
between  death  and  a  new  birth,  and  as  an  organ  or  limb 
that  is  disused  gradually  atrophies,  so  a  country  that  is  not 
developed  by  the  spirits  incarnated  therein  gradually  atro- 
phies and  becomes  useless  as  a  habitation  for  mankind. 
It  was  necessary  to  the  evolution  of  humanity  to  enter  this 
material  world  and  develop  all  its  resources. 

Therefore,  the  Great  Leaders  have  taken  various  means 
to  cause  us  to  temporarily  forget  the  spiritual  si  da  of  our 
nature.  In  the  West,  where  the  pioneers  of  the  human 
race  are  fcund,  they  commanded  marriage  outside  the  f am- 
ity. They  gave  to  the  West  a  religion  that  did  not  defi- 
nitely teach  the  doctrine  of  rebirth  and  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect  as  means  of  advancement.  They  also  originated 
the  use  of  alcohol,  with  its  paralyzing  effect  upon  the  spir- 
itual sensibilities  of  man  By  these  means  we  have  in  the 
West  temporarily  forgotten  that  there  is  more  than  this 
one  life  on  earth,  and  in  consequence  we  apply  ourselves 
with  the  utmost  diligence  to  making  the  fullest  possible 
use  of  what  we  believe  to  be  our  only  opportunity  here. 
Therefore,  we  have  developed  the  West  into  a  veritable 
garden;  we  have  made  for- ourselves,  between  incarnations, 
a  land  that  is  exceedingly  fertile  and  rich  in  the  minerals 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  225 

•  which  we  need  in  our  various  industries,  and  thus  we  are 
conquering  the  visible  material  world. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  religious  side  of  man's 
nature  must  not  be  entirely  neglected,  and  as  Christ,  the 
great  ideal  of  the  Christian  religion,  had  been  set  before  us 
for  imitation,  and  we  could  not  possibly  hope  to  become 
Christ-like  in  one  life,  which  is  all  that  we  now  have  any 
knowledge  of,  there  must  be  given  us  a  compensatory  doc- 
trine, or  we  should  cease  to  strive  in  despair,  knowing  that 
it  would  be  futile.  Therefore  the  Western  World  was 
taught  the  doctrine  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins  through  the 
righteousness  of  Christ  Jesus. 

It  is  equally  certain,  however,  that  no  doctrine  which  is 
not  a  truth  in  nature  could  have  any  uplifting  power,  and, 
therefore,  there  must  also  be  a  sound  basis  behind  the  doc- 
trine of  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  which  seems  to  vitiate  the 
law  of  causation ;  it  is  this : 

When  we  look  about  us  in  the  material  world,  we  observe 
the  different  phenomena  of  nature,  we  meet  other  people 
and  have  various  transactions  with  them,  and  all  these 
sights,  sounds  and  scene?  are  observed  by  means  of  our 
sense  organs.  Yet  not  all,  for  we  are  usually  exceedingly 
unobservant  of  details.  It  is  exasperatingly  true  when  it 
is  said  that  "we  have  eyes  that  see  not  and  ears  that  hear 
not."  We  lose  a  great  deal  of  experience  on  that  account. 
Besides,  our  memory  is  woefully  lacking ;  while  we  are  able 
to  recall  a  little,  most  of  our  experiences  are  lost  to  us 
because  we  forget  them.  Our  conscious  memory  is  weak, 
There  is  another  memory,  however.  As  the  ether  and  the 
air  carry  to  the  photographic  plate  in  a  camera  the  impres- 
sion of  the  landscape  without,  omitting  not  the  slightest 
detail,  so  also  does  the  air  and  the  ether  which  carries  im- 


226  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

pressions  from  the  outside  to  our  sense  organs  carry  into 
the  lungs,  and  thence  to  the  blood,  an  actual  picture  and  a 
record  of  everything  with  which  we  come  in  contact.  Those 
pictures  are  stored  in  the  irnnute  seed  atom  resting  in  the 
left  ventricle  of  the  heart,  and  that  little  atom  may  be 
'considered  the  Book  of  the  Kecording  Angels,  where  all  our 
'deeds  are  inscribed.  Thence  it  is  mirrored  in  the  Reflect- 
ing Ether  of  our  vital  body. 

In  the  ordinary  course  of  life,  man  passes  into  Purga- 
tory at  death  and  expiates  the  sins  inscribed  upon  that 
atom.  Later  he  assimilates  all  the  good  stored  there  in  the 
First  Heaven,  working  upon  his  future  environment  in  the 
Second  Heaven.  But  a  devout  person  realizes  each  day 
his  shortcomings  and  failings.  He  examines  the  events  of 
this  life  daily  and  prays  from  a  devout  heart  to  be  forgiven 
for  sins  he  has  committed.  Then  the  pictures  which  have 
recorded  the  sins  of  omission  and  commission  fade,  and 
are  wiped  out  of  his  life's  record  from  day  to  day.  For 
it  is  not  the  aim  of  God  or  nature  to  "yet  even"  as  it  would 
seem  under  the  law  of  causation,  which  decrees  an  exact 
retribution  for  every  transgression,  as  well  as  a  reward  or 
compensation  for  every  good  act.  It  is  the  aim  of  God  that 
we  should  learn  by  experience  here  to  do  justly  and  well. 
When  we  have  realized  that  we  have  done  wrong  and  de- 
termine to  do  better,  we  have  learned  the  lesson,  and  there 
is  no  necessity  for  punishing  us. 

Thus  the  doctrine  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  an  actual 
fact  in  nature.  If  we  repent,  pray  and  reform,  the  sins 
we  have  repented  of,  prayed  for  and  reformed  from  are 
forgiven  and  wiped  out  of  our  life's  record.  Otherwise, 
they  are  eradicated  by  correspond  ins:  pains  in  Purgatory 
after  death.  Thus  the  doctrine  of  Karma,  or  the  law  of 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  227 

-cause  and  effect  as  taught  in  the  East,  does  not  fully  meet 
human-  needs,  but  the  Christian  teaching,  which  embodies 
both  the  law  of  causation  and  the  doctrine  of-  the  forgiver 
ness  of  sins,  gives  a  more  complete  teaching  concerning 
the  method  employed  by  the  Great  Leaders  to  instruct  us. 


QUESTION  No.  113. 
By  what  power  did  Peter  raise  Dorcas  from  the  dead? 


Answer:  Peter  did  not  raise  Dorcas  from  the  dead, 
neither  did  the  Christ  raise  Lazarus  or  anyone  else,  nor 
did  he  so  claim.  He  said  "He  is  not  dead,  he  sleepeth." 

In  order  that  this  matter  may  be  understood,  we  will 
explain  what  takes  place  at  death  and  wherein  death  is 
different  from  the  state  of  trance,  for  the  persons  men- 
tioned were  entranced  at  the  time  the  supposed  miracles 
took  place. 

During  the  waking  state,  when  the  Ego  is  functioning 
consciously  in  the  Physical  World,  its  various  vehicles 
are  concentric — they  occupy  the  same  space — but  at  night, 
when  the  body  is  laid  down  to  sleep,  a  separation  takes 
place.  The  Ego,  clothed  in  the  mind  and  desire  body, 
extricates  itself  from  the  dense  body  and  the  vital  body, 


228  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

which  are  left  upon  the  bed.  The  higher  vehicles  hover 
above  or  near.  They  are  connected  to  the  denser  vehicles 
by  the  silver  cord,  a  thin  glistening  thread  which  takes  the 
shape  of  two  figure  sixes,  one  end  being  attached  to  the 
seed  atom  in  the  heart  and  the  other  to  the  center  vortex  of 
the  desire  body. 

At  the  moment  of  death,  this  thread  is  ruptured  at  the 
seed  atom  in  the  heart  and  the  forces  of  this  atom  pass 
along  the  pneumogastric  nerve,  through  the  third  ven- 
tricle of  the  brain,  and  thence  outward  through  the  suture 
between  the  occipital  and  parietal  bones  of  the  skull,  along 
the  silver  cord  and  into  the  higher  vehicles.  Simultane- 
ously with  this  rupture,  the  vital  body  is  also  disengaged 
and  joins  the  higher  vehicles  which  are  hovering  above 
the  dead  body.  There  it  remains  for  about  three  and 
one-half  days.  Then  the  higher  vehicles  disengage  them- 
selves from  the  vital  body,  which  disintegrates  synchro- 
nously with  the  dense  body,  in  ordinary  cases. 

At  the  time  of  this  last  separation,  the  silver  cord  also 
breaks  in  the  middle,  and  the  Ego  is  freed  Lorn  contact 
with  the  material  world. 

During  sleep  the  Ego  also  withdraws  from  the  dense 
body,  but  the  vital  body  remains  with  the  dense  body  and 
the  silver  cord  is  left  intact. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  Ego  does  not  enter  the 
body  in  the  morning  to  waken  it  as  usual,  but  remains 
outside  for  a  time  varying  from  one  to  an  indefinite  num- 
ber of  days.  Then  we  say  that  the  body  is  in  a  natural 
trance.  But  the  silver  cord  is  not  ruptured  in  either  of 
the  two  places  mentioned.  Where  these  ruptures  have 
once  taken  place  no  restoration  is  possible.  The  Christ 
and  the  apostle  were  clairvoyants ;  they  saw  that  no  rup- 
ture had  taken  place  in  the  cases  mentioned,  hence  the  say- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  229 

ing,  "He  is  not  dead,  he  sleepeth."  They  also  possessed 
the  power  to  force  the  Ego  into  its  body  and  restore  the 
normal  condition.  Thus  so-called  miracles  were  per- 
formed by  them. 


QUESTION  Xo.  114. 
Do  you  believe  in  conversion? 


Answer:  Certainty,  but  there  are  conversions  and  con- 
versions. There  is  the  conversion  which  takes  place  in  a 
revival  meeting  to  the  beating  of  drums,  the  clapping  of 
hands,  the  singing  of  gospel  hymns  and  the  insistent  call-' 
ing  of  the  revivalist  to  "come  before  it  is  too  late."  All 
these  aids  to  conversion  produce  an  intense  hypnotic  in- 
fluence, which  works  upon  the  emotional  nature  of  many 
people  in  such  a  way  that  these  "sinners,"  so  called,  can 
no  longer  remain  in  their  seats,  but  are  forced  in  the  most 
literal  sense  to  obey  the  command  and  come  forward  to 
"the  mourner's  bench."  That  kind  of  a  conversion  is 
usually  of  very  little  worth.  Bevivalists  find  that  it  is 
extremely  easy  to  convert  people  in  that  manner.  The  ex- 
asperatingly  difficult  problem  is,  as  one  of  them  expressed 
it,  "to  make  it  stick,"  for  when  the  victim  of  the  hypnotic 


23Q  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

reviyali$t  .leaves  the  meeting,  the  influence  gradually  wears 
off,  aoid  sooner  or  later  he  relapses  into  his  original  atti- 
tude. And .  thpjigh  these.,  "backsliders"  may  feel  no  pang 
at  all  when  backsliding,  the  next  revival  meeting  draws 
them  to  the  mourners'  bench  again  as  surely  as  a  magnet 
draws  a  needle.  They  are  converted  repeatedly  and  back- 
slide regularly  every  time  there  is  a  revival  meeting,  to 
the  disgust  of  the  revivalist  and  the  amusement  of  the 
community,  who  are  unaware  that  it  is  a  simple  case  of 
mild  hypnotism. 

There  is  another  conversion,  however,  always  accompa- 
nied by  planetary  influences,  and  according  to  the 
strength  of  these  influences  the  conversion,  or  change  in 
the  life,  will  be  more  or  less  radical.  It  then  shows  that 
the  soul  has  reached  a  certain  point  in  its  pilgrimage 
where  it  feels  attraction  to  the  higher  life.  The  imme- 
diate cause  of  conversion  may  be  a  sermon,  a  lecture  or  a 
book,  a  verse  in  the  Bible,  or  something  in  nature,  but 
that  is  only  the  physical  cause  of  something  which  was 
already  a  fact  spiritually.  From  that  moment  the  man  or 
the  woman  will  commence  to  take  a  new  view  of  life,  will 
lay  aside  the  old  vices,  will  follow  new  lines  of  thought 
and  endeavor.  It  may  change  his  whole  attitude  toward 
life  and  also  his  environment.  In  fact,  very  often  a  jour- 
ney has  brought  him  out  of  the  usual  environment  for  the 
time  being,  to  give  the  proper  condition  for  sowing  of 
the  new  seed, 


QUESTIONS  AND  AX S WEES  231 

QUESTION  No.  115. 
there  any  value  in  confession  and  absolution? 


Answer:  If  the  inquirer  means  confession  and  absolu- 
t'on  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  practiced  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  it  may  be  stated  that  the  priest,  certainly,  has  no 
power  to  forgive  the  sins  of  the  penitent,  and  the  prac- 
tice of  confession  ~by  the  order  of  a  church  at  the  best  is 
usually  but  an  outward  show  of  penitence,  putting  one 
in  mind  of  the  prayer  of  the  Pharise.e  who  went  into  the 
temple  that  he  might  be  seen  of  men. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  confession  is  made  in  the  spirit  of 
the  scribe,  which  is  the  spirit  of  true  penitence,  then 
there  is  a  certain  value,  for  as  a  little  child  who  has  com- 
mitted a  wrong  feels  conscience  smitten  and  sorry,  so  may 
we  feel  extremely  penitent  for  our  sins  of  omission  and 
commission. 

It  is  a  fact  often  noticed  by  kind  parents  that  peni- 
tence in  silence  is  sometimes  insufficient  to  the  child  which 
feels  the  need  of  going  to  the  parent  and  confessing  its  sin. 
When  the  forgiveness  of  the  parent  has  been  obtained  its 
conscience  is  at  rest.  So  also  with  the  child  of  God.  We 
sin  and  we  are  sorry  for  our  sins ;  we  determine  not  to 
commit  this  or  that  wrong  again ;  but  if  we  can  confess 
to  someone  in  whom  we  ha\e  faith,  and  get  their  sym- 
pathy and  assurance  that  this  wrong  will  next  be  held 
against  us,  we  shall  feel  easier  in  conscience.  That  was 
the  principle  underlying  the  command  of  the  Bible  "Con-- 
fess  your-  sins  to  one  another."  The  one  to  whom  we 
confess  will,  of  course,  be  a  person  for  whom  we  have 
a  profound  respect  and  love,  and  he  or  she  will  stand 


932  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

toward  us  at  that  moment  as  the  representative  of  God' 
or  our  own  higher  nature,  and  we  shall  thus  feel  very 
touch  relieved  at  having  received  his  sympathy.  But  we 
shall  feel  also  that  the  pact  we  have  made  with  ourselves 
not  to  commit  the  sin  in  question  again  has  been  strength- 
ened by  having  him  as  a  witness.  If  confession  is  made 
thus,  and  absolution  so  obtained,  then  it  has  undoubtedly 
a  verv  beneficial  effect. 


QUESTION  No.  116. 

Is  there  any  value  in  the  Latin  ritual  used  by  the  Catho- 
lic Church?  Would  it  not  be  better  if  it  were  translated 
so  that  people  could  understand?  And  are  not  the  extem- 
poraneous sermons  and  prayers  used  in  the  Protestant 
churches  much  to  be  preferred  to  the  ritual  and  stereo- 
typed masses  of  the  Catholics? 


Answer:  At  the  present  time  all  humanity  has  evolved 
so  far  that  they  are  above  law  in  some  respects.  Most 
people  obey  the  law  "Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  for  instance. 

Law  is  a  curb  on  the  desire  nature,  but  where  occult  or 
rather  spiritual  advancement  is  contemplated,  the  spirit- 
ualization  of  the  vital  body  must  also  be  accomplished. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  233 

i 

And  that  is  attained  by  means  of  art  and  religion,  in 
oft-repeated  impacts,  for  the  keynote  of  the  vital  body  is 
repetition,  as  we  can  see  by  looking  at  the  plants  which 
have  only  a  dense  body  and  a  vital  body.  There  stem 
and  leaf  follow  each  other  in  upward  succession;  the 
plant  keeps  on  growing  them  alternately.  It  was  the  vital 
body  that  built  the  vertebrae  of  the  human  spine  one  after 
another  by  constant  repetition.  And  memory,  for  in- 
stance, which  is  one  of  the  faculties  of  the  vital  body,  is 
strengthened  and  developed  by  constant  iteration  and 
reiteration. 

"When  the  Protestants  left  the  Catholic  Church  they 
truly  left  many  of  the  abuses  behind,  but  they  also  left 
almost  everything  of  value.  They  abandoned  the  ritual 
which  everyone  may  know  and  understand  regardless  of 
poor  enunciation  upon  the  part  of  the  preacher.  Know- 
ing the  ritual,  the  laity  could  send  their  thoughts  in  the 
same  direction  as  the  thought  of  the  priest  who  was 
reading,  and  thus  an  enormous  volume  of  identical  spirit- 
ual thought  was  massed  together  and  projected  upon  the 
community  for  good  or  evil.  Nowadays  the  congregation 
in  a  Protestant  church  listens  to  the  extemporaneous 
prayer  or  sermon  of  their  minister,  who  usually  does  not 
think  so  much  of  the  spiritual  work  before  him  as  he 
does  of  how  he  may  turn  out  the  most  euphonious  phrases 
to  tickle  the  ears  of  his  congregation.  They  forget  what 
he  has  said  before  they  leave  the  church.  Those  who  go 
to  a  Catholic  church  understanding  the  ritual  are  still 
today  able  to  unite  their  thoughts  in  spiritual  conclave 
and  keep  within  memory  that  which  has  been  gone 
through.  Thus  they  are  every  time  adding  a  little  to 'the 
spiritualization  of  their  vital  bodies,  while  the  Protestant 
church  members  have  been  affected  only  in  their  emo- 


£34  KOSICHUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

tional  natures,  and  that  effect  is  soon  thrown  out.  The 
Bible  tells  us  to  pray  without  ceasing,  and  many  have 
scoffed  saying  that  if  God  is  omniscient  He  knows  whereof 
we  have  need  without  our  prayer,  and  if  He  is  not,  He 
can  most  likely  not  be  omnipotent,  and  therefore  our 
prayers  are  not  granted,  so  that  it  is  useless  to  pray.  But 
that  command  was  indited  from  a  knowledge  of  the 
nature  of  the  vital  body,  which  needs  that  repetition  in 
order  that  it  may  be  spiritualized. 

So  much  for  the  ritual.  As  to  the  use  of  the  Latin 
language,  it  is  stated  in  the  first  chapter  of  John  that 
in  the  beginning  was  the  word  .  .  .  and  without  it  was 
nothing  made  that  was  made.  Word  is  sound.  If  we 
take  sand  or  plant  spores  and  place  them  upon  a  brass  or 
a  glass  plate,  then  take  a  violin  bow  and  draw  it  across 
the  edges,  we  shall  produce  a  sound,  and  that  sound  will 
cause  the  spores  or  sand  to  arrange  itself  in  geometrical 
figures,  similar  to  the  crystals  of  which  all  things  are 
composed.  Erery  sound  produces  a  different  formation. 
Thus,  if  a  certain  sound  produces  a  certain  effect  which 
we  wish  'to  produce,  we  cannot  change  the  sound  without 
also  changing  the  effect.  If  we  emit  a  certain  sound  and 
say  "Deum,"  then  translate  Deum  and  say  God,  the  sound 
is  very  different,  and  as  sound  produces  certain  effects 
upon  our  invisible  bodies,  the  effects  that  were  produced 
by  the  original  Latin  ritual  have  been  lost  to  the  Protestant 
churches  which  changed  it  into  English  or  dropped  it 
altogether. 

It  is  often  a  wonder  to  people  how  the  Catholic  Church 
retains  its  power  over  its  people,  and  it  may  be  said  that 
were  they  to  abandon  the  Latin  ritual  there  would  not  be 
one  of  their  followers  left  in  ten  years.  Moreover,  their 
truly  occult  rituals  have1  not  been  transposed  into  English, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  235 

and  even  among  the  Kosicrucians,  Latin  rituals,  though 
not  those  used  in  the  Catholic  Church,  are  in  vogue  at  the 
services. 


QUESTION  No.  117. 

What  is  the  actual  merit  in  martyrdom?    Did  the  mar- 
tyrs  really  become  saints'? 


Answer:  Man  lifts  himself  to  a  union  with  God  through 
four  great  steps  or  stages.  First  he  prays  to  or  sacri- 
fices to  a  God  whom  he  fears  and,  therefore,  seeks  to 
propitiate,  so  that  his  God  will  not  harm  him.  Next  he 
learns  to  look  upon  this  God  as  a  mighty  ally  against  his 
enemies  and  as  a  giver  of  all  good  things  to  him,  that  is, 
provided  he  obeys  the  God  and  sacrifices  to  him  of  the 
material  things  which  he  possesses.  In  the  third  step  he  is 
taught  to  sacrifice  himself  by  living  a  life  of  righteous- 
ness, and  expects  to  be  rewarded  in  a  future  state  called 
heaven,  where  he  is  to  live  in  eternal  happiness  as  a  com- 
pensation for  whatever  he  may  have  endured  during  earth 
life.  The  martyrs  were  at  the  stage  where  they  held  this 
belief,  and  were  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  verity  and 
glory  of  heaven.  Therefore,  it  was  to  them  an  easy  mat- 


236  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

ter  to  sacrifice  their  lives  and  then  attain  to  the  future 
glory  at  once. 

In  reality,  if  martyrdom  can  unlock  a  heaven  with  eter- 
nal bliss,  that  is  a  most  easy  method  of  obtaining  the  re- 
ward. It  may  take  courage  to  die,  but  after  all  it  takes 
infinitely  more  courage  to  live.  We  are  very  apt  to  think 
that  when  a  man  has  given  his  life  he  has  given  to  the 
very  utmost,  and  we  often  hear  people  say  of  a  man  who 
has  committed  suicide  that  "he  lias  paid  it  all"  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  suicide  is  usually  an  expression  of  the  greatest 
possible  cowardice,  and  martyrdom  is  far  less  to  be  ad- 
mired than  the  lives  of  people  who  day  by  day  endeavor 
to  follow  the  spiritual  teachings  of  the  Bible  and  live  a 
noble  life.  Of  course,  it  is  readily  admitted  that  tne 
martyrs  are  to  be  admired  for  stanchly  adhering  to  their 
faith  in  the  face  of  death  and  torture.  Undoubtedly  they 
will  have  greater  opportunities  for  spiritual  growth  in 
later  lives  than  they  were  deprived  of  when  burned  at 
the  stake  or  otherwise  exterminated.  And  we  may  also 
surely  say  that  they  were  saints  and  holy  people  in  the 
sense  that  their  faith  was  even  more  to  them  than  life, 
but  we  strenuously  hold  that  the  edict  of  a  church  is  in- 
capable of  making  a  sinner  a  saint. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  237 

QUESTION  No.  118. 

In  one  of  your  lectures  you  said  in  effect  that  it  was  a 
mistake  to  send  missionaries  to  foreign  countries;  that  the 
religions  practiced  by  the  so-called  heathens  are  right  for 
them  at  the  present  time,  but  that  these  missionaries  have 
done  little  harm  as  yet.  How  then  do  you  explain  the 
command  of  Christ  to  his  apostles,  "Go  ye  into  all  the 
world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature1?" 


Answer:  The  meaning  of  the  Christ's  words  obviously 
rest  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  word  "world."  .If  by 
that  word  we  understand  the  whole  earth,  it  may  be  right 
to  send  missionaries  to  foreign  countries;  but  the  Bible 
tells  us  that  the  disciples  to  whom  the  command  was  given 
returned  after  having  accomplished  their  mission,  show- 
ing that  the  word  of  command  could  not  have  been  meant 
to  include,  the  whole  earth.  In  this  connection  the  word 
"world"  should  rather  have  been  given  the  interpretation 
"polity,"  which  will  also  be  found  in  some  of  our  dic- 
tionaries as  another  meaning  for  the  word.  At  the  time 
of  Christ  people  did  not  know  the  whole  world.  We  find 
even  to  this  day  the  westernmost  cape  of  Spain  called  Cape 
Fimsterre — the  end  of  the  earth.  Therefore  this  term  at 
the  time  when  Christ  spoke  his  command  could  not  have 
included  the  whole  earth  as  we  know  it  today.  The 
statement  is,  therefore,  not  contrary  to  Bible  teachings. 
It  is  wrong  to  send  missionaries  out  to  the  people  we 
call  "heathen,"  for  their  development  is  as  yet  such  that 
they  cannot  understand  a  religion  which  preaches  love 
to  one's  neighbor,  a  religion  which  even  we  have  not  yet 
learned  to  practice.  Besides,  if  the  great  Recording 


238  KOSICRTJCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Angels  who  have  charge  of  men's  evolution  are  capable  of 
judging  our  needs,  and  placing  each  one  in  the  environ- 
ment where  he  will  iind  the  influences  most  conducive  to 
progression,  we  must  also  believe  that  they  have  given  to 
each  nation  the  religion  most  salutary  to  its  unfoldment. 
Therefore,  when  a  man  has  been  placed  in  a  country  where, 
the  Christian  religion  is  taught,  that  religion  holds  the 
ideal  which  he  should  strive  for,  but  to  try  to  force  it  upon 
other  people  who  have  been  placed  in  a  different  sphere  is 
to  set  our  judgment  up  as  greater  than  the  judgment  of 
God  and  His  ministers,  the  Eecording  Angels.  However, 
as  said,  the  Christian  missionaries  have  done  little  harm 
to  the  people  they  have  visited,  but  they  might  have  done 
more  good  at  home.  We  do  not  need  to  go  away  from  home 
to  find  heathen  who  need  instruction  in  the  Bible.  Pro- 
fessor Wilbur  L.  Cross  of  Yale  mentions,  for  instance, 
that  in  a  class  of  forty  students  not  one  could  place  Judas 
Iscariot;  that  he  had  a  Jewish  student  who  had  never 
heard  of  Moses  and  that  in  answer  to  a  question  concern- 
ing the  nature  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  the  best  answer 
was  that  it  is  the  basis  of  New  England  history.  If  the 
missionaries  were  brought  into  contact  with  these  heathen, 
perhaps  they  might  do  some  good. 

More  harm,  however,  is  done  when  the  East  sends  its 
missionaries  over  here  to  convert  us  to  Hindooism  and 
kindred  religions,  for  often  these  Hindoos  teach  breathing 
exercises  which  cause  insanity  or  consumption,  because  our 
western  bodies  are  not  at  all  fitted  for  such  practices.  It 
is  safest  to  rest  in  the  religion  of  our  country,  to  study 
and  practice  that,  leaving  to  other  nations  the  privilege  of 
doing  the  same  in  respect  to  their  own  religions. 


SECTION  V 

Questions  concerning 

SPIRITUALISTIC  PHENOMENA 


QUESTION  No.  119. 
Is  mediumship  injurious  to  health? 

Answer:  That  depends:  Where  a  person  becomes  the 
medium  for  a  disembodied  spirit  which  enters  the  body,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  trance  mediums,  where  it  takes  pos- 
session of  this  body  and  uses  it  as  the  owner  might  do, 
there  is  little  if  any  harm  done,  provided  the  spirit  control 
does  not  abuse  his  privilege.  In  fact,  there  are  some 
cases  where  spirit  controls  have  a  better  idea  of  caring 
for  a  body  than  the-  owner  himself,  and  may  sometimes 
improve  the  health.  But  spirits  of  a  high  ethical  nature  do 
not  usually  control  a  medium,  it  is  rather  earthbound  and 
low  spirits  such  as  Indians  and  others  of  a  like  nature 
who  obtain  a  control  over  mediumistic  persons,  and  when 
in  possession  of  the  body  they  may  use  it  to  gratify  their 
low  passions  for  drink  and  sex.  Thus  they  cause  a  dis- 
turbance to  the  system  and  a  deterioration  of  the  in- 
strument. 

In  the  case  of  the  materializing  medium,  we  may  say 
that  the  influence  is  always  injurious.  The  materializing 
spirit  entrances  the  victim  and  then  draws  the  ether  of 
the  vital  body  out  through  the  spleen,  for  the  difference 
between  the  materializing  medium  and  the  ordinary  per- 
son is  the  fact  that  the  connection  between  the  vital  body 
and  the  dense  body  is  exceedingly  lax,  so  that  it  is  possible 
to  withdraw  this  vital  body  to  a  very  great  extent.  The 
vital  body  is  the  vehicle  whereby  the  solar  currents  which 

HI 


24:2  EOS1CRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

give  us  vitality  are  specialized.  Deprived  of  the  vitalizing 
principle,  the  body  of  the  medium  at  the  time  of  a  ma- 
terialization sometimes  shrinks  to  almost  one-half  its  usual 
size;  the  flesh  becomes  flabby  and  the  spark  of  life  burns 
very  low.  When  the  seance  is  over  and  the  vital  body  re- 
placed, the  medium  is  awakened  and  in  normal  conscious- 
ness. He  then  experiences  a  feeling  of  the  most  terrible 
exhaustion  and  sometimes,  unfortunately,  resorts  to  drink 
to  revive  the  vital  forces.  In  that  case,  of  course,  the 
health  will  very  soon  suffer  and  the  medium  will  become 
a  total  wreck.  At  any  rate,  mediumship  should  be  avoided, 
for  apart  from  this  danger  to  the  instrument  there  are 
other  and  far  more  serious  considerations  in  connection 
with  the  more  subtle  bodies,  and  particularly  in  connec- 
tion with  the  after-death  state. 


QUESTION  No.  120. 

Where  mediums  make  so-called  soul  trips,  what  is  it  that 
leaves  the  physical  body,  and  can  it  leave  in  the  waking 
state  to  gather  data? 


Answer:  A  medium  is  a  negative  or  involuntary  clair- 
voyant and  under  the  control  of  a  spirit  from  the  Desire 
World.  He  or  she  corresponds  to  the  victim  of  a  hypnotist 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  343 

in  the  Physical  World.  In  the  case  of  the  hypnotist,  he 
is  seen  by  his  victim  in  the  waking  state,  while  the  me- 
dium does  not  see  the  spirit  which  hypnotizes  her  until 
she  has  been  driven  out  of  her  body.  She  is  then  clothed 
in  her  desire  body  and  therefore  usually  unable  to  bring  her 
experiences  back. 

All  her  experiences  take-  place  while  the  physical  body  is 
in  a  trance.  It  is  the  Ego  clothed  in  the  mind  and  desire 
body  which  leaves  the  physical  body  behind,  and  the 
same  separation  takes  place  then  as  in  ordinary  dreamless 
sleep,  with  the  difference,  however,  that  the  physical  body 
is  not  left  tenantless  upon  the  bed,  but  the  spirit  control 
usually  enters  the  physical  body  of  the  medium,  taking 
possession  and  using  it  according  to  pleasure,  often  to  the 
great  detriment  of  the  medium.  For  when  such  a  spirit 
control  has  been  a  drunkard  or  libertine  during  earth 
life,  it  will  often  use  the  medium's  body  to  gratify  its 
craving  for  liquor  or  its  base,  sensual  instincts.  We  can- 
not too  seriously  impress  upon  people  that  this  physical 
body  is  our  most  valuable  instrument,  and  that  it  is  very 
wrong  for  anyone  to  abandon  it  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
either  a  hypnotist  or  a  spirit  control.  In  the  case  of 
mediums,  there  is  a  still  graver  danger,  for  sometimes  it 
is  not  an  ordinary  human  Ego  which  is  the  control,  but 
an  elemental  that  cannot  ordinarily  function  in  the  Phys- 
ical World.  When  the  medium  at  death  enters  the  Desire 
World,  the  elemental  has  obtained  such  a  power  over  the 
desire  body  of  the  medium  that  it  may  rob  the  owner  of 
his  vehicle.  The  desire  body  is  the  vehicle  whence  comes 
the  spring  to  action,  and  therefore  when  an  Ego  is  deprived 
of  that  vehicle  there  is  nothing  to  cause  it  to  reincarnate. 
The  elemental  may  keep  this  body  even  for  millions  of 
years,  and  so,  while  the  rest  of  humanity  is  progressing, 


244:  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  unfortunate  Ego,  deprived  of  its  desire  body,  is  left 
inert  and  will  be  far  behind  all  its  fellows,  perhaps,  be- 
fore it  is  released  from  the  bondage  of  this  entity.  There- 
fore, mediumship  is  the  gravest  danger  to  the  soul  the 
writer  knows  of  or  is  able  to  conceive,  except  the  practice 
of  black  magic. 


QUESTION  No.  121. 

I  have  taken  many  soul  flights,  and  on  one  of  these  jour- 
neys my  guide  took  me  through  gates  into  a  crystal  city 
and  on  into  a  temple  filled  with  ethereal  people,  saying, 
"This  is  God's  Holy  City."  Will  you  kindly  tell  me  where 
this  is,  why  there  are  gates  and  walls  around  the  city,  and 
why  everything  looked  like  crystal? 


Answer:  It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  desire  stuff, 
which  is  the  matter  of  the  Desire  World,  that  it  is  exceed- 
ingly plastic  and  readily  molded  by  thought.  In  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye  it  takes  the  most  different  shapes  according 
to  the  thought  that  ensouls  it,  and  where  many  people 
upon  earth  think  along  similar  lines  all  their  thoughts 
mass  themselves  and  form  one  grand  whole. 

Thus,  in  the  lower  regions  of  the  Desire  World,  the 
thoughts  of  people  who  believe  in  a  fiery,  furnace-like  Hell 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  -74,5 

make  of  the  desire  stuff  there  such  a  place  of  torture.  There 
we  may  see  devils  with  horns,  hoofs  and  tails,  prodding  the 
unhappy  sinners  with  pitchforks,  and  often  when  people 
pass  out  at  death,  after  having  lived  in  that  belief,  they 
are  in  a  sad  state  of  fear  on  beholding  this  place  which 
they  have  helped  to  create.  There  is  also  in  the  higher 
regions  of  the  Desire  Woilcl  a  city  such  as  you  describe,  a 
New  Jerusalem  with  pearly  gates,  with  a  sea  of  glass  and 
its  great  white  throne  upon  which  is  seated  a  thought 
form  of  God,  created  by  these  people  and  appearing  like 
an  old  man.  It  is  probable  that  you  visited  this  place, 
which  is  a  permanent  feature  of  the  Desire  World,  and 
will  remain  so  as  long  as  people  continue  to  think  of  the 
New  Jerusalem  in  that  way,  for  these  forms  have  no 
life  apart  from  the  sustained  thoughts  of  mankind,  and 
when  in  time  humanity  shall  have  outgrown  that  faith, 
the  city  created  by  their  thoughts  will  cease  to  exist.  Its 
crystal-like  appearance  is  due  to  the  exceeding  brilliance 
of  the  desire  stuff  of  which  it  is  built.  The  old  alchemists 
called  the  Desire  World  "astral/'  "starry/'  on  that 
account. 


246  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  122. 

Are  not  the  desire  bodies  left  ~by  progressing  Egos  used 
by  elemental*  to  deceive  friends  and  relatives  of  the  de- 
ceased person?  How  can  they  be  detected  and  recognized? 


Answer:  When  the  spirit  has  passed  out  at  death,  and 
after  a  stay  in  Purgatoiy  of  shorter  or  longer  duration 
enters  the  First  Heaven,  it  still  has  with  it  the  desire 
body  used  during  the  earth  life,  but  when  it  enters  the 
Second  Heaven  that  desire  body  is  left  behind  in  a  like 
manner  as  the  vital  and  dense  bodies  were  left  at  death 
and  shortly  after.  But,  while  the  dense  body  iroes  to  de- 
cav  and  dicintsgrates,  becomes  inert  and  useless  at  once 
when  the  spirit  has  left  it,  it  is  very  different  with  the 
desire  body.  The  material  of  which  that  body  is  com- 
posed is  so  much  more  vitalized  by  the  Universal  Spirit 
that  it  will  retain  the  ability  to  move  about  a  long  time 
after  the  spirit.  The  empty  shell  is  drawn  by  magnetic 
attraction  to  those  with  whom  it  associated  during  earth 
life  and  a  memory  of  that  past  life  very  often  enables  it  to 
pose  successfully  as  a  deceased  relative.  This  is  particu- 
larly the  case  when  the  shell  is  used  by  an  elemental  entity. 

These  empty  shells  ensouled  by  elementals  account  very 
satisfactorily  for  most  of  the  phenomena  encountered  at 
spiritualistic  seances.  The  pranks  of  these  elementals  in 
spilling  water  down  the  necks  of  the  sitters,  throwing 
chairs,  tables  and  the  like  about,  are  specimens  of  what 
may  be  done  by  such  empty  shells  when  in  the  possession 
of  elementals. 

As  to  how  they  may  be  detected  or  recognized  by  us,  it 
will  be  °vident  that  whi'e  our  deceased  friends  and  rela- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

tives  during  earth  life  possessed  common  sense,  there  is 
nothing  to  be  gained  from  the  inane  nonsensical  communi- 
cations of  these  empty  shells,  for  the  spirit  which  was  in 
reality  our  friend  has  passed  away,  leaving  the  house 
empty.  Therefore  we  may  judge  them  by  words  and 
acts  as  we  judge  people  here. 


QUESTION  Xo.  123. 

Can  elementals  assume  the  shape  of  animals  or  reptiles, 
and  what  can  l)e  done  to  stop  them? 


Answer:  In  this  material  world  all  the  forms  are  stable 
and  do  not  easily  change.  The  Desire  World  is  widely 
different  in  that  respect.  The  fairy  tales,  like  the  meta- 
morphosis of  Cinderella's  mice,  etc.,  are  actual  facts  in  the 
Desire  World,  for  the  forms  change  at  the  will  of  the  en- 
souled life  with  a  lightning-like  rapidity,  which  is  very 
bewildering  to  one  who  enters  that  world  as  a  neophyte.  It 
is,  therefore,  necessary  for  the  clairvoyant  to  be  trained, 
in  order  to  escape  being  glamored  by  the  form,  which  is 
always  changing  and  may  assume  any  shape  at  any  mo- 
ment. When  we  are  able  to  see  the  ensouling  life,  it  does 
not  matter  what  form  it  takes  upon  itself  for  the  time 


248  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

being,  we  are  not  deceived.  Like  all  others  in  the  Desire 
World,  elementals  have  this  faculty  of  changing  their 
shape,  and  it  is  due  to  that  fact  that  so  many  strange  tales 
or  visions  seen  are  thought  true  by  untrained  clairvoyants. 
Nothing  can  be  done  to  stop  elementals  from  changing 
their  shape,  but  we  may  shoo  them  away  from  us  as  we 
chase  a  serenading  feline  from  below  our  bedroom 
window. 


QUESTION  Xo.  124. 
How  can  one  avoid  becoming  obsessed? 


Answer:  Obsession  is  a  state  where  a  discarnate  spirit 
has  taken  permanent  possession  of  the  body  of  someone 
after  dispossessing  the  owner.  But  sometimes  people  who 
have  formed  a  habit  of  drunkenness  or  some  other  low 
vice  seek  to  excuse  themselves  by  claiming  to  be  obsessed. 
Wherever  a  person  makes  that  statement  concerning  him- 
self, one  may  nearly  always  be  sure  that  it  is  nothing  but 
an  excuse,  for  a  thief  who  has  stolen  something  here  in 
the  material  world  does  not  go  about  and  tell  people  of 
his  theft,  neither  does  an  obsessing  entity  go  around  pro- 
claiming the  fact.  It  is  very  certain  that  such  an  entity 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  £49 

does  not  care  what  is  thought  about  the  man  whose  body 
he  has  stolen,  so  that  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should 
tell  and  risk  being  exorcised. 

There  is  an  infallible  means  of  knowing  whether  a  per- 
son is  really  obsessed.,  namely,  by  diagnosis  of  the  eye. 
"The  eye  is  the  window  of  the  soul/'  and  only  the  true 
owner  is  capable  of  contracting  and  expanding  the  iris,  or 
pupil  of  the  eye,  so  that  if  we  take  a  person  who  claims 
to  be  obsessed  or  whom  we  think  is  obsessed,  to  a  room 
which  is  darkened,  we  shall  find  that  the  pupil  of  his  eye 
will  not  expand  if  he  is  obsessed.  Neither  will  the  pupil 
contract  when  we  bring  him  into  the  sunlight,  nor  expand 
if  we  ask  him  to  look  at  an  object  at  a  distance  or  con- 
tract when  he  is  asked  to  read  small  type.  In  short,  the 
pupil  of  the  eye  will  respond  neither  to  light  nor  to  dis- 
tance when  a  person  is  obsessed,  but  there  is  also  a  certain 
disease  called  locomotor  ataxia,  where  the  iris  will  not 
respond  to  distance  but  is  responsive  to  light. 

No  one  who  maintains  a  positive  attitude  of  mind  can 
ever  become  obsessed,  for  so  long  as  we  assert  our  individu- 
ality that  is  strong  enough  to  keep  all  outsiders  away.  But 
in  spiritualistic  seances  where  the  sitters  are  negative  there 
is  always  a  great  danger.  The  best  way  to  avoid  becoming 
obsessed  would  be  to  maintain  this  positive  attitude,  and 
anyone  who  is  at  all  negatively  inclined  should  avoid  going 
to  spiritualistic  seances,  crystal  gazing  and  other  methods 
of  evoking  spirits.  That  is  bad  practice  anyway,  for  those 
who  have  gone  beyond  have  their  wrork  to  do  there  and 
should  not  be  brought  back  here. 


250  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  125. 
What  is  psychometry? 


Answer:  Science  teaches  us  that  every  particle  of  mat- 
ter in  the  Physical  World  is  interpenetrated  by  ether,  so 
that  the  chemical  atoms  of  every  substance,  no  matter  how 
dense,  do  not  touch  one  another,  but  each  little  atom  vi- 
brates in  a  field  of  this  all-prevailing  ether.  The  vibra- 
tions of  this  ether  emitted  by  every  object  carry  to  our 
eyes  a  picture  of  the  things  about  us.  This  picture  is  not 
lost.  The  picture?  vjf  all  things  which  we  have  consciously 
observed  still  exist  in  the  ether  of  our  vital  body,  and  it 
only  depends  upon  our  ability  to  call  them  back  whether 
we  remember  them  or  not. 

There  is  also  in  tlio  ether  pervading  every  object  a  pic- 
ture of  the  whole  surroundings  of  that  object.  On  the 
walls  of  our  rooms  are  inscribed  all  the  scenes,  every  in- 
cident tVat  ever  happened  in  that  room,  and  even  though 
we  strip  them  of  lath  and  plaster,  it  may  be  impossible 
to  get  rid  of  all  the  pictures  inscribed  there.  If  we 
take  a  piece  of  plaster  from  such  a  room  and  bring  it  to 
a  person  who  has  cultivated  etheric  sight,  it  is  possible 
for  that  person  to  see  the  ether  in  that  piece  of  plaster,  and 
to  tell  about  the  scenes  which  happened  where  that  plas- 
ter came  from.  If  we  show  him  a  piece  of  stone  taken  from 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  he  will  see  those  pyramids  just  as 
well  as  if  we  had  brought  him  a  photograph,  for  it  is  the 
ether  from  an  object  such  as  the  pyramid  that  makes  the 
impression  upon  the  photographer's  sensitive  plate,  and  the 
only  difference  between  that  impression  and  the  impression 
we  receive  through  the  eye  is  that  we  are  able  to  fix  it  on 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  251 

the  photographic  plate,  and  may  take  a  look  at  the  photo- 
graph at  any  time,  while  we  are  not  yet  able  to  clearly 
visualize  the  scenes  of  our  past  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances. But  the  psychometrist  who  can  read  the  ether  has 
a  wonderful  picture  gallery  at  his  disposal. 


QUESTION  No.  126. 

Is  it  true  that  at  spiritualistic  seances  persons  are  some- 
times transported  bodily  from  one  place  to  another  by  in- 
visible hands;  that  flowers  are  brought  into  the  room 
through  closed  luindoivs  and  doors,  and  if  so,  how  can  that 
be  done? 


Answer:  Yes,  it  is  perfectly  true  that  such  phenomena 
as  you  have  mentioned  take  place  at  times  under  condi- 
tions where  no  fraud  is  at  all  possible.  As  to  the  move- 
ment of  objects,  that  may  be  accomplished  by  the  spirits 
in  charge  of  the  seance  in  various  ways.  Hands  may  be 
materialized  which  are  either  visible  or  invisible,  and  they 
may  lift  objects  or  persons  from  one  place  to  another,  or 
else  these  objects  may  be  lifted  by  the  suspension  of  the 
law  of  gravity  so  far  as  that  object  is  concerned.  As  to 
the  passage  of  flowers  through  a  wall,  a  closed  window 


252  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

or  other  material  object,  we  should  remember  that  these 
objects  are  not  really  as  solid  as  we  usually  think.  Science 
recognizes  the  fact  that  no  two  atoms  in  any  substance 
touch  one  another,  but  each  atom  swings  and  vibrates  at  a 
varying  rate  of  speed  in  the  sea  of  ether  which  permeates 
all  matter.  It  is  well  known  also  that  all  substances  may 
be  reduced  to  gas.  Iron,  stone,  water,  or  whatever  other 
substance  we  name  is  capable  of  being  thus  reduced.  Eealiz- 
ing  this,  it  is  only  a  step  further  to  the  idea  that  as  these 
substances  are  reduced  to  a  gaseous  state  and  as  readily 
resolved  back  into  their  original  state,  so  a  flower  may 
be  resolved  into  ether,  passed  between  the  atoms  in  a  wall 
and  then  resolved  back  into  its  existence  as  a  flower. 
That  is  in  fact  what  happens. 

But  the  inquirer  may  say,  "Ye?,  but  if  you  take  a  silver 
dollar,  melt  it  in  a  crucible,  or  retoit  and  change  it  into  a 
gas,  it  will  not  take  the  shape  of  a  silver  dollar  when  it  is 
resolved  back  into  the  metallic  state  but  will  become  simply 
a  lump  of  metal."  That  is  true  where  the  operation  is 
performed  by  an  ordinary  man,  who  is  incapable  of  sepa- 
rating the  dense  mateiial  from  its  etheric  counterpart  dur- 
ing the  process  of  melting,  but  the  spiritual  entities  who 
perform  the  feats  spoken  of  are  capable  of  thus  detaching 
the  ether  part  of  the  flower  from  the  dense  material.  And 
it  is  that  etheric  part  wi.-ich  retains  its  shape  and  forms 
the  matrix  or  mold  which  gives  form  to  the  material  of 
the  flower  when  liberated  in  the  room  after  having  been 
passed  through  the  wall. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  253 

QUESTION  No.  127. 

Will  you  kindly  explain  the  use  of  the  planchette?  And 
state  if  it  is  advisable  to  try  to  produce  the  phenomena 
among  amateurs. 


Answer:  The  planchette  is  a  small  board  placed  upon 
wheels  with  a  device  for  holding  a  pencil  in  a  vertical 
position,  so  that  when  the  medium's  hand  is  placed  upon 
the  hoard  and  moved  about  by  the  spirits  the  pencil  will 
write  their  messages  on  a  sheet  of  paper.  Like  all  other 
spiritualistic  phenomena,  planchette  writing  is  produced 
by  a  disembodied  spirit  through  a  negative  medium. 

When  an  entity  has  passed  out  of  earth  life  and  entered 
the  Invisible  Beyond,  an  evolution  of  a  different  nature 
from  ours  awaits  him  in  Purgatory  and  the  various 
heavens.  It  is  a  retrogression  when  he  tries  to  communi- 
cate with  us  here  under  ordinary  circumstances.  There- 
fore, all  spiritualistic  phenomena  which  bring  the  disem- 
bodied spirit  into  contact  with  the  Physical  World  are  to 
be  deprecated  as  having  a  bad  effect  upon  the  spirits  con- 
cerned. The  communicating  entities  are  also  dangerous 
to  the  negative  sitters  in  a  circle,  who  abandon  their  will 
powers  and  their  bodies  to  a  certain  extent. 

Of  course  in  planchette  writing  the  whole  body  may  not 
be  in  trance,  although  it  sometimes  is;  but  at  least  an 
arm  is  abandoned  to  the  control  of  a  discarnate  spirit 
whom  the  sitter  does  not  see,  and  who  may  or  may  not 
be  what  it  represents.  If  a  tramp  came  to  our  door  and 
tried  to  persuade  us  to  abandon  our  house  and  allow  him 
to  take  possession  for  a  little  while,  we  would  indignantly 
refuse,  but  when  a  tramp  from  the  Desire  World  asks  us 


254  EOSICKUGIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

to  let  him  have  possession  of  our  most  valuable  house,  our 
body,  many  at  once  comply,  flattered  in  the  bel;ef  that 
"a  dear  Angel"  has  visited  them.  But  "dear  Angels"  and 
philanthropists  do  not  grow  on  every  bush  in  the  Desire, 
World  any  more  than  here.  It  cannot  be  too  often  reit- 
erated that  there  is  no  transforming  power  in  death;  that 
an  ignorant  Indian  does  not  suddenly  become  all  wise  by 
the  mere  fact  of  having  passed  out  at  death.  As  it  is 
necessary  to  study  in  order  to  gain  knowledge  in  this 
world,  so  must  the  departed  spirits  apply  themselves  if 
desiring  to  learn  about  conditions  in  that  world,  and  until 
they  have  had  the  requisite  amount  of  experience,  the  de- 
parted are  no  more  fit  to  guide  us  from  there  than  they 
were  while  here.  The  safest  plan  is  to  leave  all  negative 
phenomena  alone,  concentrating  all  our  energies  on  living 
the  life,  and  doing  exercises  which  foster  in  us  the  faculty 
of  entering  that  world  at  will,  either  traveling  in  our  finer 
vehicles  or  clairvoyantly  observing  it  while  still  within 
our  dense  body.  That  is  progress;  when  we  have  that 
ability  we  can  see  the  disembodied  entities  face  to  face 
and  judge  for  ourselves  whether  it  is  advisable  to  listen 
to  their  counsel  or  not.  Until  we  can  do  that  we  are 
at  a  disadvantage,  and  caution  should  teach  us  to  keep 
on  the  safe  side. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  255 

QUESTION  Xo.  128. 
Is  a  vampire  the  same  as  a  werewolf? 


Answer:  Xo,  a  vampire  is  a  person  who  absorbs  the 
vitality  of  another,  while  that  which  is  called  a  werewolf 
in  mediaeval  times  was  the  vital  body  of  a  low  order  of 
black  magician.  He  would  give  a  gruesome  shape  to  his 
vital  body,  and  partly  stud  it  with  dense  matter  in  order 
to  inflict  harm  upon  other  people.  The  old  folk  stories 
said  that  it  was  no  use  to  strike  such  a  thing,  blows  would 
not  hurt  it.  But  if  it  were  stabbed  with  a  knife  or  another 
sharp  instrument,  it  would  commence  to  disgorge  the 
blood  of  its  victims,  run  away  yelping  to  its  home.,  and 
there  the  black  magician  who  had  manifested  as  a  wolf 
could  be  found  suffering  from  a  wound  in  the  precise 
place  where  the  wolf  had  been  hurt.  This  is  on  account 
of  a  curious  circumstance  known  to  occultists  as  repercus- 
sion, and  the  same  phenomena  may  be  seen  where  spirits 
materialize  at  a  seance.  The  ether  in  which  these  spirits 
materialize  has  been  taken  from  the  body  of  the  medium, 
and  if  a  piece  is  cut  out  of  the  robe  of  such  a  spirit,  a 
piece  will  be  found  missing  from  the  garment  of  the 
medium  at  the  close  of  the  seance.  This  fact  has  been 
used  by  skeptical  investigators  ignorant  of  the  law  of 
repercussion  to  stamp  mediums  as  frauds,  when  in  fact  they 
have  been  perfectly  honest,  though  incapable  of  explain- 
ing away  the  seemingly  damning  evidence. 


256  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  129. 

What  is  the  difference  between  a  trance  medium,  a  ma- 
terializing medium,  the  trained  clairvoyant  and  the  ordi- 
nary person  ? 


Answer:  Roughly  speaking,  we  may  say  that  humanity 
today  is  divided  into  two  classes — those  in  whom  the  con- 
nection hetween  the  vital  body  and  the  dense  body  is  very 
close,  and  another  class  where  the  connection  is  more  loose. 
The  former  class  is  the  ordinary  person  who  is  engaged 
in  material  pursuits  and  is  altogether  out  of  touch  with 
the  Spiritual  Worlds.  The  latter  class  is  the  so-called  sensi- 
tives, and  is  again  divided  into  two  classes.  One  class  is 
actuated  by  the  will  from  ivithin  and  is  positive.  From 
this  class  comes  the  trained  clairvoyant  and  the  Invisible 
Helper.  The  other  class  is  negative  and  is  amenable  to  the 
will  of  others.  From  this  class  mediums  are  recruited. 

When  the  connection  hetween  the  vital  body  and  the 
dense  body  of  a  man  is  somewhat  lax,  he  will  be  sensi- 
tive to  spiritual  vibrations,  arid  if  positive  lie  will  by 
his  own  will  develop  his  spiritual  faculties,  live  a  spiritual 
life  and  in  time  receive  the  teaching  necessary  to  become 
a  trained  clairvoyant  and  a  master  of  his  faculty  at  any  and 
all  times,  free  to  exercise  it  or  not,  as  he  pleases. 

If  a  person  has  this  slight  laxity  between  the  vital  and 
dense  bodies,  and  is  of  a  negative  temperament,  he  is 
liable  to  become  the  prey  of  discarnate  spirits,  as  a  medium. 

Where  the  connection  between  the  vital  and  dense  body 
is  very  lax,  so  that  it  may  be  withdrawn,  and  the  man 
is  positive,  he  may  become  an  Invisible  Helper,  capable  of 
taking  the  two  higher  ethers  away  from  his  dense  body 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  25% 

at  will  and  using  them  as  a  vehicle  for  sense  perception 
and  memory.  He  can  +hen  function  consciously  in  the 
Spiritual  World  and  bring  back  a  recollection  of  every- 
thing he  has  done  there,  so  that,  for  instance,  when  he 
leaves  his  body  at  night  he  takes  up  the  life  in  the  In- 
visible World  in  a  fully  conscious  manner,  as  we  do  here 
when  we  wake  up  in  the  morning  after  sleep  and  perform 
our  various  duties  in  the  visible  world. 

When  a  person  has  this  lax  connection  between  the 
vital  body  and  the  dense  body  and  is  of  a  negative  tempera- 
ment, the  spirits  which  are  earth  bound  and  seek  to  mani- 
fest here  may  withdraw  his  vital  body  by  way  of  the  spleen 
and  temporarily  use  the  ether  of  which  it  is  composed 
to  materialize  spirit  forms,  returning  the  ether  to  the 
medium  after  the  seance  is  over. 


QUESTION  No.  130. 

If  mediumship  is  so   dangerous,  why  do  not  the  me~ 
diums  cease  to  allow  themselves  to  be  controlled? 


Answer:  In  the  first  place,  of  course,  the  great  majority 
of  the  mediums  do  not  realize  that  there  is  danger.  They 
are  particularly  unaware  of  the  enormous  danger  which 
threatens  them  after  death.  The  desire  body  may  then  be 


258  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

appropriated  by  the  spirit  control.  If  they  were  to  try 
to  stop  the  influence  of  the  spirit  control  while  still  here 
in  the  body  they  would  find  that  that  entity  has  an 
exceedingly  strong  hold  upon  them,  a  control  it  is  very 
difficult  to  break,  and  they  ought  to  realize  that  naturally 
when  death  brings  them  into  the  same  world  with  these 
spirit  controls  the  danger  will  be  still  greater. 

The  writer  has  known  certain  cases  where  mediums 
have  balked  and  tried  to  escape  from  the  toils  of  the 
spirit  control,  but  have  failed  to  break  the  strong  hold  of 
that  entity.  They  were  helpless.  Mediums  have  come  to 
the  writer  for  help  and  told  him  that  they  were  almost 
irresistibly  compelled  by  their  spirit  controls  to  commit 
suicide  and  murder;  that  they  had  begged  and  pleaded 
with  the  spirit  controls  to  leave  them  alone,  but  without 
avail.  Cases  are  known  also  where  spirit  controls  have 
mercilessly  dragged  their  victims  out  of  bed  in  the  middle 
of  night  against  their  will  and  forced  thorn  to  listen  to 
their  importunities.  Only  seldom  does  one  hear  that  they 
show  mercy.  Though  the  writer  has  known  mediums  who 
have  been  ill  from  such  treatment,  he  has  only  known  of 
one  case  where  the  sickness  of  the  medium  induced  the 
spirit  controls  to  listen  to  his  plea  and  leave  him  alone 
for  a  few  months  while  he  recuperated. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  mediumship,  once  entered 
into,  is  not  usualty  a  matter  of  choice  with  the  mediums; 
they  lose  the  power  to  shut  out  spirit  controls.  While  they 
do  the  bidding  of  their  taskmasters  and  are  docile,  they 
may  not  feel  the  bit;  but  let  one  of  them  try  to  balk,  and 
he  or  she  will  soon  feel  that  the  spirit  control  has  both 
bit  and  spur,  and  is  merciless  in  his  use  of  them. 


SECTION  VI 

Questions  concerning 

CLAIRVOYANCE. 


260 


QUESTION  No.  131. 

What  is  the  difference  between  a  Clairvoyant,  an  Ini- 
tiate and  an  Adept? 

Answer:  What  a  man  sees  depends  upon  the  sensitive- 
ness of  his  eye.  Some  people  can  distinguish  objects  at  a 
distance  which  makes  them  invisible  to  other  people. 
Artists  perceive  shades  of  color  which  ordinary  people 
cannot  distinguish  and  some  people  are  color  blind;  there 
are  even  those  who  cannot  see  at  all — they  are  blind. 

The  people  who  can  see  the  farthest  or  distinguish  the 
most  delicate  shades  of  color  are  more  clairvoyant,  or 
clearsighted,  than  the  rest. 

The  majority  among  us  are  able  to  see  most  things  in 
our  environment,  but  we  know  very  little  about  the  things 
we  see  just  because  we  see  them.  We  had  to  be  initiated 
into  the  use  of  the  telephone,  the  bicycle,  automobile,  piano, 
etc. 

But,  though  we  may  know  how  to  use  these  instruments 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  we  are  not  so  thoroughly 
familiar  with  their  construction  that  we  are  able  to  build 
or  repair  them  when  they  have  become  disabled.  Before 
we  become  qualified  for  that  work  we  must  take  a  course 
of  special  training,  and  if  we  apply  ourselves  with  our 
whole  heart,  we  may  become  adepts  in  our  special  line. 

If  we  apply  this  illustration  to  the  problem  before  us, 
we  may  understand  that  a  clairvoyant  is  a  man  whose 
sense  of  sight  has  become  so  extended  that  he  perceives 

261 


262  ROSICRUCIAN  FHILOSOPHY 

another  world,  which  is  invisible  to  most  of  us,  and  that 
he  is  able  to  see  everything  there. 

But  he  does  not  ''know  all  about"  the  things  he  sees 
there  by  the  mere  fact  of  perception  any  more  than  we 
know  all  about  the  things  we  see  in  this  world.  He  must 
apply  himself  to  gain  that  knowledge.  Then,  by  degrees, 
he  will  become  an  Initiate,  who  understands  the  things  he 
sees,  and  may  be  able  to  manipulate  some  of  them  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  as  we  are  able  to  play  upon  a 
piano  or  ride  a  bicycle  when  we  have  learned  these  arts. 

It  will  require  further  training  to  enable  the  Initiate 
to  exercise  power  over  the  things  and  the  forces  in  the 
invisible  world  as  an  A  dept. 

Thus  the  Clairvoyant  is  one  who  sees  the  invisible  world  ; 
the  Initiate  both  sees  the  invisible  world  and  understands 
what  he  sees,  while  the  Adept  sees,  knows  and  has  power 
over  things  and  forces  there. 


QUESTION  No.  132. 

Why  is  it  that  trained  clairvoyants  do  not  offer  to  lend 
themselves  to  some  simple  l)ut  conclusive  tests  conducted  l)y 
men  of  science  which  would  convince  everybody  of  the 
reality  of  faculties  transcending  the  ordinary  senses? 

Answer:  In  the  first  place,  trained  clairvoyants  have 
no  axes  to  grind ;  they  are  not  concerned  in  the  smallest 


QUESTIONS  AXD  ANSWERS  263 

degree  whether  people  believe  or  not;  while  it  might  make 
a  great  deal  of  difference  to  the  people  themselves  were 
they  to  believe,  it  makes  no  difference  whatever  to  the 
trained  clairvoyant.  He  never  seeks  for  money,  or  any 
other  consideration  that  the  world  could  offer  him  if  con- 
.vinced;  he  has  no  wish  for  worldly  power,  he  never  flaunts 
his  faculty  or  boasts  of  it,  but  always  speaks  of  it  with  ex- 
ceeding modesty  when  he  does  so  at  all.  If  he  does  deeds 
that  are  meritorious,  perhaps,  in  helping  his  fellow  men, 
he  does  not  care  to  have  these  facts  known.  He  usually 
does  not  let  "his  left  hand  know  what  his  right  hand  does." 
A  blind  man  does  not  see  the  colors  and  the  light,  al- 
though they  are  everywhere  about  him,  and  if  he  should 
come  to  us  and  ask  us  to  submit  to  tests  which  would  prove 
to  him  beyond  a  doubt  that  we  perceive  light  and  color, 
we  should  wonder  what  tests  could  possibly  convince  him 
of  those  facts.  So  does  the  trained  clairvoyant  wonder 
what  tests  would  convince  everybody.  There  has  been  no 
test  devised  yet  that  would  not  be  open  to  some  other  ex- 
planation in  the  minds  of  some  people,  and  the  unfortu- 
nate clairvoyant  who  should  lend  himself  to  such  tests 
would  have  to  keep  on  and  on  forever,  and  yet  generations 
of  skeptics  would  denounce  him  as  a  fraud.  He  would  be 
required  to  submit  to  the  tests  of  every  single  one  of  the 
scientists,  and  scientists  do  rot  even  believe  their  own 
eyes.  If  their  reason  says  a  thing  is  impossible  they  refuse 
to  believe,  though  shown.  Scientists  are  forced  to  be  con- 
tent to  experiment  under  the  laws  of  nature,  when  con- 
ducting their  researches  in  chemistry,  etc.,  of  which  they 
know  something,  but  arrogate  to  themselves  the  right  io 
prescribe  conditions  when  testing  superphvsical  matters 
of  which  they  are  confessedly  ignorant.  When  mecliurrs 


264:  KOSICRUCIAX  PHILOSOPHY 

demand  a  darkened  room  for  their  experiments,  the  scien- 
tists usually  say,  "Ah,  yes,  that  at  once  shows  that  they 
are  frauds ;  they  want  the  room  darkened  so  that  they  can 
play  their  tricks  undetected."  The  mediums  usually  do 
not  know  why  the  room  should  be  darkened  and  therefore 
cannot  explain,  but  a  law  underlies  the  demand  of  the 
medium. 

It  is  this :  Light  rays  set  the  ether  into  violent  vibration 
and  make  it  difficult  for  the  communicating  entities  to 
work  with  it  in  that  condition,  to  mold  it  into  a  body,  a 
vocal  organ,  a  hand,  or  other  material  manifestation.  The 
darker  the  room  the  less  the  ether  vibrates,  and  the  easier 
it  is  for  these  entities  to  use  it  as  required  for  the  spiritual- 
istic phenomena. 

There  are  numerous  other  laws  affecting  superphysical 
phenomena,  of  which  science  has  no  conception,  and  this 
ignorance  at  once  disqualifies  the  scientists  for  prescribing 
conditions.  The  way  is  always  open  for  them,  however,  TO 
know  at  first  hand.  They  say  to  us,  procure  a  number 
of  lenses,  ground  in  a  certain  way,  place  them  in  a  tube 
in  a  certain  manner,  point  that  tube  with  your  lenses  in 
a  certain  direction  in  the  sky  and  you  will  see  eight  moons 
revolving  around  Saturn.  If  we  comply  with  their  directions, 
we  shall  see  that  what  they  tell  us  is  to  be  found  there. 
If  we  refuse  to  provide  the  necessary  instrument  we  can- 
not see  the  moons  of  Saturn.  We  say  to  them :  live  the 
life  and  perform  the  exercises,  so  that  you  may  evolve  in 
yourselves  that  faculty  of  which  we  speak.  Then  you  will 
see  that  we  have  spoken  the  truth,  and  yon  will  be  com- 
pelled to  assert  the  things  we  assert.  If  they  are  unwill- 
ing to  comply  with  our  directions,  they  may  remain  as 
unconvinced  of  the  existence  of  super-physical  realms  as 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  265 

the  man  who  will  not  procure  a  telescope  may  doubt  the 
existence  of  the  Saturnian  moons,  for  all  that  the  trained 
clairvoyants  care. 


QUESTION  Xo.  133. 

//  clairvoyance  is  such  an  accurate  means  of  investiga- 
tion, such  a  high  spiritual  faculty,  why  do  we  usually  set  it 
in  possession  of  people  of  little  education  and  coarse  breed- 
ing; who  have  seemingly  very  little  spirituality  and  who 
often  tell  lies? 


Answer:  There  was  a  time  in  the  far,  far  past  when  the 
human  body  was  a  very  much  less  complicated  organism 
than  it  is  today,  before  the  cerebro-spinal  nervous  system 
had  been  evolved  to  give  man  voluntary  control  over  his 
body.  At  that  time  the  sympathetic  or  involuntary  nervous 
system  took  care  of  the  purely  animal  functions,  much  as 
it  does  today.  Then  man  was  a  much  more  spiritual  being 
than  he  is  now,  and  his  means  of  perception  of  the  Spiritual 
Worlds  were  organs  which  are  now  temporarily  in  disuse. 
We  have  a  number  of  organs  in  our  bodies  in  various  stages 
of  completion,  some  of  which  are  atrophying  because  they 
have  served  their  uses.  The  muscles  which  move  the  ears 


266  ROSICKUCIAN"  PHILOSOPHY 

in  animals,  for  instance,  are  also  present  in  man,  but  they 
are  no  longer  needed  and,  therefore,  most  of  us. have  lost 
the  use  of  them.  Other  organs  are  in  a  state  of  develop- 
in  ert,  such  as,  for  instance,  the  heart,  which  is  an  involun- 
tary muscle,  hut  is  being  invested  with  cross-stripes  like 
the  voluntary  muscles  and  will,  at  a  future  time,  be  capable 
of  regulation  at  any  desired  speed. 

Another  class  of  organs  are  simply  in  a  state  of  dor- 
mancy, and  among  these  is  the  pituitary  body  and  the 
pineal  gland.  If  they  were  not  to  be  used  in  the  future, 
they  would  surely  atrophy,  as  do  all  other  organs  when 
they  have  ceased  to  be  useful.  In  the  far  past  these  organs 
were  connected  with  the  sympathetic  system  and  invested 
man  with  involuntary  clairvoyance,  and  because  of  their 
connection  with  the  cerebro-spinal  system  they  will  in  the 
future  enable  mankind  to  effect  a  contact  with  the  Spiritual 
Worlds  at  will. 

It  is  easier  to  roll  a  stone  down  hill  than  to  roll  it  up 
hill ;  retrogression  is  more  readily  accomplished  than  pro- 
gression, and  when  people  seek  for  development  in  a  nega- 
tive condition  they  readily  renew  the  negative  activity  of 
the  pituitary  body  and  the  pineal  gland,  and  become  nega- 
tive clairvoyants.  But  as  any  faculty  which  is  exercised 
by  means  of  the  involuntary  nervous  system  cannot  be 
exercised  by  the  powei  of  the  will,  this  faculty  is,  of  course, 
sporadic  in  mediums.  At  times,  when  the  power  is  on, 
they  can  contact  the  Spiritual  Worlds  in  a  limited  way. 
At  other  times,  when  the  power  is  off,  they  are  unable  to 
see.  Therefore,  they  often  simulate  in  order  to  earn  a 
needed  fee. 

The  man  who  consciously  evolves  his  spiritual  faculty 
controls  the  vibration  of  the  two  little  organs  named  by 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  267 

will  power  and  has  no  "off"  days.  The  power  to  see  is 
his  at  any  and  all  times.  Thus,  in  his  hands,  clairvoyance 
is  an  accurate  means  of  investigation,  but  it  should  be 
understood  that  as  it  is  necessary  to  investigate  in  this 
world  before  we  know,  so  it  is  also  in  that  world.  Many 
people  are  foolishly  skeptical  concerning  the  existence  of 
superphysical  worlds  and  senses,  but  people  who  think 
that  when  a  man  "sees"  in  the  invisible  worlds  he  at  once 
knows  everything  about  them  are  equally  foolish.  A  blind 
man  who  has  acquired  the  faculty  of  sight  by  an  opera- 
tion affords  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  we  must  learn 
to  see  here  in  the  Physical  World,  for  at  first  he  very  often 
shuts  his  eyes,  declaring  that  it  is  easier  to  walk  by  feeling 
than  by  sight,  because  he  has  not  yet  learned  to  gauge  dis- 
tances. The  infant  which  reaches  for  the  moon  or  for 
something  on  the  other  side  of  the  room  also  demonstrates 
this  fact.  As  above,  so  below ;  before  a  man  has  been 
trained,  the  mere  fact  of  clairvoyance  is  not  of  much  use 
to  him,  and  the  idea  that  because  he  sees,  he  necessarily 
knoivs  everything,  is  gratuitous.  We  who  have  seen  here 
all  our  lives  do  not  know  all  about  everything  in  this  world  ; 
neither  do  the  people  who  "see"  know  all  about  the  other 
world.  Besides,  the  forms  here  are  stable  and  do  not 
easily  change,  while  the  matter  of  sight  and  knowledge 
is  complicated  in  the  Inner  Worlds  by  the  plasticity  of  the 
forms  there,  for  they  often  change  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye  in  response  to  the  thoughts  of  entities  who  function 
there. 

To  evolve  voluntary  clairvoyance  is  an  arduous  task,  and 
this  faculty,  therefore,  is  possessed  by  few,  while  negative 
clairvoyance,  unfortunately,  has  been  developed  by  many 
who  had  no  high  ideals  to  prevent  prostitution  of  their 
faculty  for  gold. 


268  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  134. 

What  do  you  mean  by  initiation,,  and  why  are  oniy  men 
Initiates? 


Answer:  The  ordinary  idea  of  initiation  is  that  of  ad- 
mittance into  a  secret  order,  usually  in  consideration  of 
an  i?iitiation  fee,  but  occult  initiation  is  very  different. 

When  a  person  has  endeavored  to  live  the  higher  life  for 
some  time,  has  purified  his  vehicles  by  mental,  moral  and 
physical  endeavors,  he  emits  a  light  in  the  invisible  world 
and  accumulates  a  power  within.  In  time  a  point  of  cul- 
mination is  reached  where  this  power  must  be  given  vent. 
Then  there  appears  in  his  life  a  teacher  who  shows  him 
the  power  he  has  cultivated,  often  unconsciously  to  him- 
self, and  its  use.  This  demonstration  is  called  initiation. 
It  may  take  place  in  a  temple  or  not ;  it  may  or  may  not 
be  accompanied  by  a  ceremony,  as  the  circumstances  de- 
mand. Let  it  be  clearly  understood  that  no  ceremony  can 
give  to  the  candidate  the  powers  which  initiation  teaches 
him  to  use,  any  more  than  pulling  the  trigger  of  a  pistol 
which  is  not  loaded  can  cause  an  explosion.  The  initiatory 
ceremony  would  be  worthless  save  as  a  culmination  to  the 
life  of  discipjeship. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  Initiation  is  the  inevitable  result 
\ 

of  merit.  It  is  never  sold  for  money,  though  there  is  no 
lack  of  unscrupulous  charlatans  who  offer  to  initiate  any- 
one into  the  occult  arts  of  which  they  know  nothing  them- 
selves ;  nor  are  gullible  fools  wanting,  or  dishonest  persons 
who  hope  to  gain  a  sinister  power  over  their  fellow-man 
by  purchase.  If  Simon,  the  sorcerer,  merited  the  scathing 
rebuke  of  Peter  when  he  attempted  to  buy  a  spiritual  power 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  269 

for  gold,  we  wonder  what  condemnation  is  adequate  to  meet 
the  case  of  those  who  advertise  them  as  commercial  wares, 
particularly  when,  in  the  nature  of  things,  they  are  unable 
to  deliver  the  goods  offered  for  sale.  The  inquirer  is  under 
a  misapprehension  when  he  believes  that  only  men  are 
Initiates,  at  least  so  far  as  the  Lesser  Mysteries  are  con- 
cerned. There  are  women  Initiates  and  sometimes  even 
Initiates  of  the  Greater  Mysteries  take  upon  themselves  a 
feminine  body  for  the  sake  of  a  special  work  which  they 
desire  to  accomplish.  It  is  true,  however,  that  those  who 
have  advanced  so  far  that  they  have  a  choice  regarding  sex 
usually  prefer  a  male  body,  and  the  reason  is  not  far  to 
seek.  Woman  has  a  positive  vital  body  but  a  negative 
dense  body  and  is,  therefore,  somewhat  at  a  disadvantage  in 
the  world  as  at  present  constituted.  Striving  for  the  higher 
ideals  and  living  the  higher  life,  we  spiritualize  the  vital 
body  and  transmute  it  into  soul  which  is  always  positive — 
a  power  useable  regardless  of  sex — and  when  the  Initiate 
wears  a  masculine  body  also,  he  is  thoroughly  positive 
in  the  Physical  World  and  has  a  better  chance  for  ad- 
vancement than  when  using  a  feminine  vehicle. 


270  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  135. 

Is  it  not  the  duty  of  one  who  is  informed  on  subjects 
concerned  with  the  higher  life  to  give  information  and 
to  the  less  informed  ? 


Answer:  Certainly,,  knowledge  is  the  one  thing  which 
we  may  give  to  others  and  still  retain  ourselves.  In  fact, 
when  we  help  others  by  disseminating  our  knowledge  we 
are  helping  ourselves  and  increasing  our  own  store.  For 
no  one  really  knows  a  thing  until  he  has  told  and  ex- 
plained it  to  someone  else,  and  we  should  understand  that 
whatever  knowledge  we  may  obtain  is  not  our  exclusive 
property,  but  is  to  be  used  for  the  universal  good.  If  we 
selfishly  hoard  it  and  refuse  to  enlighten  others,  it  will 
act  upon  us  in  the  same  way  as  if  we  continued  to  eat 
physical  food  without  getting  rid  of  the  ashes.  There 
would  come  a  time  when  we  could  hold  no  more  and  we 
would  become  sick.  So  with  people  who  obtain  knowledge 
concerning  things  of  the  higher  life.  When  they  hoard 
it  up  instead  of  using  it  for  the  benefit  of  others,  they 
are  very  apt  to  become  recluses,  and  may  become  insane. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  271 

QUESTION  No.  136. 

What  qualifications  are  necessary  to  become  an  Invisible 
Helper?  Must  the  whole  life  be  given  over  to  spiritual 
endeavor? 


Answer:  No,  not  at  all;  in  fact,  no  one  is  justified  in 
giving  his  whole  life  to  spiritual  endeavor  unless  he  has 
first  fulfilled  whatever  material  obligations  he  may  have 
to  others.  The  duties  in  the  family  are  means  of  being 
visible  helpers,  and  the  man  or  woman  who  shirks  duty 
here  can  surely  not  be  depended  upon  to  fulfil  the  duties 
of  an  Invisible  Helper  on  the  other  side. 

Therefore,  a  patient  continuance  in  the  performance 
of  all  our  earthly  duties  to  the  very  best  of  our  ability  is 
the  first  and  most  essential  qualification  of  the  aspirant. 
As  a  further  qualification,  we  may  mention  self  control. 
While  we  are  living  and  working  in  our  dense  bodies,  the 
desire  body  is  in  a  measure  held  in  check  by  imprisonment 
in  dense,  physical  matter.  If  we  lose  our  temper  here, 
the  result  may  be  dangerous  to  ourselves  and  to  those 
around  us,  but  it  is  not  a  circumstance  to  the  peril  at- 
tendant upon  loss  of  temper  in  the  other  world,  for  our 
desire  body,  as  we  know,  can  wreck  our  physical  body  in 
a  fit  of  temper  so  that  it  may  sometimes  be  sick  for  weeks 
as  a  result  of  a  few  minutes'  loss  of  temper.  But  when 
outside  the  dense  body,  if  its  force  were  directed  against 
anyone  else,  it  could  instantly  kill  an  army. 

Knowledge  is  also  requisite  to  the  aspirant.  Unless  we 
have  studied  conditions  after  death  and  are  familiar  with 
the  scheme  of  evolution,  have  a  comprehensive  idea  of 
the  constitution  of  man  and  similar  subjects,  it  is  impos- 


272  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

sible  for  us  to  instruct  those  who  are  less  informed,  and 
to  set  us  the  tasks  of  an  Invisible  Helper  and  instructor 
would  be  analogous  to  sending  an  ignorant  boor  to  teach 
school. 

Last,  but  not  least,  the  Invisible  Helper  must  be  imbued 
with  an  all  embracing  love  of  humanity.  We  cannot  be 
callous  to  the  sufferings  of  our  fellow  creatures  here  and 
at  the  same  time  be  filled  with  love  and  a  desire  to  help 
in  the  other  world,  any  more  than  a  man  who  does  not 
know  a  note  in  earth  life  can  become  a  proficient  musician 
by  the  mere  fact  of  dying,  or  acquire  such  a  passion  for 
music  that  he  is  anxious  to  spend  eternity  tooting  in  a 
horn  or  playing  on  a  harp.  Therefore,  we  reiterate  that 
to  become  an  Invisible  Helper  there,  we  must  first  qualify 
by  helping  here. 


QUESTION  No.  137. 
What  purpose  has  the  person  in  going  out  of  his  body? 


Answer:  At  the  present  stage  of  our  evolution,  the 
greater. part  of  humanity  are  tied  to  their  bodies  during 
earth  life.  They  are  placed  in  a  small  and  narrow  en- 
vironment because  certain  lessons  may  be  learned  there 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  273 

which  can  best  be  mastered  by  practically  shutting  out 
every  other  place  and  condition  from  view.  But  there 
comes  a  time  when  man  has  grown  sufficiently  in  knowl- 
edge to  make  it  desirable  that  he  should  have  a  wider 
scope  for  his  activities.  Then  the  body  becomes  a  clog 
and  a  fetter  which  it  is  expedient  to  leave  at  times,  and 
accordingly  he  is  taught  by  the  Elder  Brothers  to  extricate 
himself  at  will.  They  themselves  have  been  helped  in  the 
past  by  more  advanced  beings  from  other  planets  until 
they  have  now  become  capable  of  teaching  the  less  evolved 
among  humanity. 

The  purpose  in  going  out  is  to  gain  a  wider  knowledge. 
But  that  knowledge  in  itself  is  only  a  means  to  an  end, 
namely,  to  help  others  progress.  Therefore,  those  who  are 
capable  of  leaving  their  bodies  are  known  as  Invisible 
Helpers.  Their  work  is  to  help  both  living  and  dead, 
according  to  ability. 


274  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  138. 

Is  it  absolutely  necessary  to  live  a  life  of  asceticism  in 
order  to  become  spiritual  and  endowed  with  psychic  powers? 


Answer:  That  depends  upon  what  the  inquirer  means 
by  asceticism.  Some  people  in  the  East  creep  into  a  barrel 
of  spikes  and  roll  themselves  about  in  order  to  mortify 
the  flesh,  or  lash  and  maim  themselves  in  various  ways 
to  attain  a  realization  of  spiritual  powers.  That,  as- 
suredly, is  not  right.  They  may  and  do  at  times  become 
clairvoyant,  but  that  course  is  as  reprehensible  and  its 
results  as  transitory  as  the  effects  obtained  by  crystal 
gazing,  the  drug  habit  and  similar  methods. 

We  should  realize  that  this  physical  body  is  our  most 
valuable  instrument,  and  that  it  is  our  duty  to  give  it  all 
reasonable  care  under  conditions  which  are  conducive  to 
its  health  and  well-being.  No  power  obtained  by  maltreat- 
ing our  body  is  of  the  highest  kind,  and  therefore  is 
neither  lasting  nor  fully  efficient. 

But  some  people  mean  b}^  asceticism,  "living  a  clean 
and  pure  life."  They  want  spiritual  power  without 
sacrifice  of  animal  propensities ;  they  desire  to  soar  in  the 
clouds  at  will,  while  at  other  times  they  claim  liberty  to 
wallow  in  the  mire.  They  want  to  continue  feeding  on 
coarse  food,  to  gorge  themselves  on  meat,  alcohol  and  to- 
bacco, to  indulge  their  passions  and  sensual  desires  in 
every  direction,  and  at  the  same  time  they  want  to  have 
spiritual  powers. 

That  cannot  be  done.  Our  bodies  are  our  tools.  A  good 
workman  appreciates  the  value  of  good  tools  and  keeps 
them  in  the  very  best  condition — sharp  and  clean.  When 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEES  275 

our  senses  have  been  dulled  by  alcohol  and  tobacco,  when 
the  system  is  forced  to  exert  all  its  energy  to  digest  or 
eliminate  coarse  food,  is  it  to  be  expected  that  the  man 
should  be  a  sensitive?  We  cannot  serve  God  and  mam- 
mon; ours  is  the  choice.  If  we  want  spiritual  powers  we 
must  pay  the  price  of  clean  lives ;  we  must  give  our  bodies 
pure  food  and  conform  to  the  rules  of  the  simple  life;  we 
must  abstain  from  everything  that  dulls  the  senses — alco- 
hol, tobacco,  and  similar  abuses.  If  that  is  called  "a  life 
of  asceticism,"  then  asceticism  is  absolutely  necessary. 


QUESTION  No.  139. 
Are  all  children  clairvoyant  tip  to  a  certain  age? 

Answer:  Yes,  all  are  clairvoyant  at  least  during  the  first 
year  of  their  life.  It  depends  upon  the  spirituality  of  the 
child  to  a  great  extent,  also  upon  its  environment,  how 
long  it  will  keep  the  faculty,  for  most  children  communi- 
cate all  they  see  to  their  elders  and  the  faculty  of  clair- 
voyance is  affected  by  their  attitude.  Often  children  are 
lidiculed,  and  nothing  so  hurts  their  sensitive  little  na- 
tures. They  soon  learn  to  shut  out  the  scenes  which  en- 
gender the  ridicule  of  their  elders,  or  at  least  they  will 
learn  to  keep  such  experiences  to  themselves.  When 


276  BOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

listened  to,  they  often  reveal  wonderful  things,  and  at 
times  it  is  possible  to  trace  a  previous  life  by  information 
from  a  little  child.  This  happens  particular!}',  of  course, 
if  the  child  died  as  a  child  in  its  previous  life,  for  then 
it  would  only  have  been  in  the  Invisible  World  from  one 
to  twenty  years,  so  that  it  is  possible  to  verify  its  informa- 
tion. Children  who,  in  their  previous  life,  died  as  chil- 
dren, are  much  more  apt  to  remember  the  past  and  to  be 
clairvoyant  than  other  children,  because  the  desire  body 
and  vital  body  are  not  born  at  the  same  time  as  the 
physical  birth  of  the  child,  but  at  seven  and  fourteen  years 
of  age,  respectively,  and  what  has  not  been  quickened  can- 
not die,  so  that  if  a  child  passes  out  before  birth  of  the 
vital  body  or  of  the  desire  body,  it  will  not  go  into  the 
Second  and  Third  Heavens,  but  will  stay  in  the  Desire 
World  and  will  be  reborn  with  the  same  desire  body  and 
mind  that  it  possessed  in  its  previous  life,  and  therefore 
it  will  be  very  much  more  apt  to  remember  what  hap- 
pened then.  The  writer  came  across  such  an  instance 
a  few  years  ago  in  Southern  California. 

One  day  in  Santa  Barbara,  a  man  by  the  name  of  Kob- 
erts  was  walking  along  the  street  when  a  little  child  ran 
up  to  him,  put  her  arms  around  his  knees  and  called  him 
"Papa."  Mr.  Roberts  thought  someone  was  trying  to 
foist  a  child  upon  him  and  indignantly  freed  himself. 
The  mother  of  the  child  was  also  indignant  at  its  action 
and  took  it  away.  But  the  child  kept  crying,  "It  is  my 
papa,  it  is  my  papa."  On  account  of  circumstances  which 
will  appear  later,  the  incident  preyed  upon  Mr.  Roberts' 
mind,  and  he  went  to  a  gentleman  whom  we  will  call 
"X".  Together  they  sought  the  house  where  the  little 
child  lived  with  its  parents,  and  after  some  parleying  were 
allowed  to  question  it.  As  soon  as  the  little  girl  saw  Mr. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  277 

Koberts  she  ran  to  him  again  and  called  him  "Papa." 
Then,  in  answer  to  intermittent  questioning  during  the 
afternoon,  the  child  told  the  story,  which  we  give  here 
connectedly. 

Once  upon  a  time  she  lived  with  Mr.  Roberts  as  her 
father  and  another  mama  in  a  little  house  by  a  brook 
where  flowers  grew  (here  she  ran  out  and  fetched  some 
pussy  willows).  There  was  a  gang  plank  across  the  brook 
which  she  was  forbidden  to  cross,  lest  she  fall  in  the  water. 
One  day  Mr.  Roberts  left  her  mama  and  herself  never  to 
return.  After  some  time  her  mama  laid  down  and  moved 
no  more.  "She  became  so  still,  and  she  died."  Then,  said 
the  child,  "I  died  too;  but  I  didn't  die,  I  came  here !" 

Next,  Mr.  Roberts  told  his  story.  "About  eighteen  years 
previously  he  had  lived  with  his  father,  a  brewer,  in  Eng- 
land. He  fell  in  love  with  their  servant  girl,  but  the 
father  refused  permission  to  marry.  The  young  people 
ran  off  to  London,  were  married,  went  to  Australia,  where 
he  cleared  a  little  farm  in  the  bush,  and  built  a  house  by 
a  brook  where  pussy  willows  grew.  There  was  a  gang 
plank  over  the  brook.  A  little  child  was  born  to  them, 
and  when  that  child  was  about  two  years  of  age,  Mr. 
Roberts  went  one  day  to  a  clearing  about  a  mile  from  the 
cabin  and  while  there  an  officer  of  the  law  approached  him 
with  a  gun  and  arrested  him  for  a  bank  robbery  committed 
on  the  night  he  left  London. 

"He  protested  his  innocence,  begged  leave  to  visit  wife 
and  child  to  take  care  of  them,  but  the  officer  feared  a 
trap  to  <ret  him  into  the  hands  of  confederates,  and  drove 
Mr.  Roberts  to  the  coast  at  the  point  of  the  gun.  He  was 
taken  to  England,  tried  for  the  robbery  and  found  not 
guilty.  Not  until  then  did  the  authorities  listen  to  his 
constant  ravings  about  a  wife  and  child  who  must  surely 


278  BOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

have  starved  in  the  wilds  of  Australia.  A  telegram  was 
sent,  a  search  party  organized  and  in  due  time  the  answer 
came.  They  found  the  skeletons  of  the  deserted  ones,  and 
Mr.  Eoberts  departed  for  America,  a  heart-broken  man." 
The  child  was  then  shown  a  number  of  pictures,  in  a 
casual  way,  among  them  being  two  photographs  of  Mr. 
Roberts  and  his  wife.  Mr.  Roberts'  appearance  had  al- 
tered very  much  since  that  photograph  was  taken.  Never- 
theless, when  the  child  came  upon  the  picture,  she  joy- 
ously shouted,  "Oh,  there  is  Papa  !"  She  also  recognized 
the  picture  of  her  mother  in  the  previous  life.  The  little 
child  was  only  about  three  years  of  age  at  the  time  when 
Mr.  Roberts  found  her,  and  could  not  possibly  have  made 
up  such  a  story.  Later  the  case  was  investigated  by  one 
of  the  foremost  newspapers  in  Southern  California,  the 
Los  Angeles  Times,  and  the  facts  found  to  be  as  here 
related. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  379 

QUESTION  Xo.  140. 

What  is  the  difference  between  white  and  black  magic^ 
and  what  is  the  effect  of  the  practice  of  black  magic  upon 
the  soul? 

Answer:  Magic  is  a  process  whereby  we  may  accom- 
plish certain  results  not  achieved  by  means  of  laws  ordi- 
narily known.  Some  men  have  investigated  laws  of  nature 
unknown  to  most  people,  and  have  become  adepts  in 
manipulating  the  finer  forces.  They  use  their  power  to 
help  their  fellow  man,  where  that  can  be  done  in  harmony 
with  the  laws  of  his  growth.  Others,  having  studied  the 
laws  and  become  capable  of  manipulating  the  hidden 
forces  of  the  universe,  use  their  knowledge  for  selfish  ends 
to  gain  power  over  their  fellow  creatures.  The  first  named 
class  are  White  Magicians,  the  latter  are  Black.  Both  of 
them  use  and  manipulate  the  same  forces,  the  difference 
being  the  motive  which  prompts  them.  The  White 
Magician  is  prompted  altogether  by  love  and  benevolence. 
Although  he  is  not  actuated  by  thoughts  of  reward,  a  soul 
growth  wonderful  to  contemplate  results  from  his  use  of 
magic.  He  has  put  his  talents  out  to  usury  and  is  gaining 
interest  a  hundredfold.  The  Black  Magician,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  in  a  sad  state,  for  it  is  said  that  the  "soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die,"  and  all  we  do  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
God  inevitably  results  in  a  deterioration  of  the  soul  quali- 
ties. 

The  Black  Magician  by  his  knowledge  and  art  may, 
sometimes  for  several  live?,  maintain  his  position  in  evo- 
lution, but  eventually  there  comes  a  time  when  the  soul 
disintegrates  and  the  Ego  reverts  into  what  we  may  call 
savagery. 


280  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Black  magic  in  its  minor  forms,  such  as  hypnotism,  for 
instance,  sometimes  causes  congenital  idiocy  in  a  future 
life.  The  hypnotist  deprives  his  victims  of  the  free  use  of 
their  bodies.  Under  the  law  of  consequence  he  is  then 
tied  to  a  body  with  a  malformed  brain,  which  prevents 
his  expression.  We  must  not  infer,  however,  that  every 
case  of  congenital  idiocy  is  due  to  such  malpractice  on 
the  part  of  the  Ego  in  a  past  life ;  there  are  also  other 
causes  which  may  bring  congenital  idiocy  as  a  result. 


QUESTION  No.  141. 

You  speak  of  the  western  and  the  eastern  schools  of 
occultism.  Is  not  the  western  school  the  better,  and  if  so, 
why  ? 

Answer:  There  are  a  number  of  different  races  upon 
earth  at  present.  The  Hindoos  are  the  first  race  in  the 
present  Aryan  Epoch,  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  the  fifth. 
'Naturally  the  latest  teaching  is  given  to  the  most  ad- 
vanced people.  Therefore  the  western  religion,  Chris- 
tianity, is  far  superior  to  the  Hindooism  and  Buddhism 
of  the  East.  The  mystery  teachings  of  the  East  are  not 
as  advanced  as  in  the  West  either.  In  the  East,  great 
stress  is  laid  upon  subjection  of  the  body  in  order  to  cul- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  281 

tlvate  the  spiritual  faculties.  They  place  the  body  in 
certain  positions  while  undertaking  arduous  breathing  ex- 
ercises and  ether  physical  exercises  not  necessary  by  the 
western  method.  In  fact,  the  western  body  is  not  at  all 
responsive  to  those  methods.  Besides,  the  pupil  in  the 
East  is  under  the  absolute  control  of  his  teacher,  whom  he 
calls  "Master/7  and  whose  commands  he  must  obey  to  the 
most  minute  detail,  without  asking  why.  In  the  West, 
we  follow  the  teachings  of  the  Christ,  who  said  to  his  dis- 
ciples, "Henceforth,  I  call  you  friends,  for  the  servant 
knoweth  not  what  his  master  doeth,  but  I  have  taught  you 
all  things  which  I  have  learned  of  my  Father."  (John 
15:15.)  Therefore,  the  teacher  in  the  West  is  on  terms 
of  the  most  intimate  friendship  with  his  pupil  and  always 
ready  to  answer  his  questions  so  far  as  compatible  with 
his  stage  of  development. 

There  are,  of  course,  some  very  advanced  people  in  the 
East,  people  who  are  far  advanced  in  the  teachings  of 
their  school,  but  a  corresponding  stage  is  usually  reached 
by  the  western  method  in  a  shorter  time  and  with  less 
effort. 


282  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  142. 

What  is  the  difference  between  etheric  sight,  clairvoyance 
and  the  sight  pertaining  to  the  World  of  Thought? 

Answer:  When  we  look  at  a  man  with  etheric  sight,  we 
first  see  his  outside  clothing,  then  the  lining  inside,  his 
underclothing,  his  skin,  ribs  and  the  various  organs  of  his 
hody  along  the  line  of  our  vision;  then  the  spinal  column, 
the  back  of  the  ribs,  the  flesh,  the  skin  and  the  clothing  on 
his  back.  In  other  words,  we  see  through  him.  By  the 
etheric  sight  a  man  can  see  through  books,  papers,  letters, 
walls,  or  anything  else  for  a  short  distance.  In  fact,  this 
faculty  may  be  called  X-ray  sight.  Only  one  substance 
is  proof  against  its  penetrative  faculty.  Glass  is  as  opaque 
to  etheric  sight  as  a  stone  wall  to  ordinary  physical  sight 
for  the  same  reacon,  perhaps,  that  glass  is  such  a  splendid 
insulator  for  electricity. 

When  we  look  at  a  person  or  a  thing  with  ordinary 
clairvoyant  sight,  we  see  their  desire  bodies  and  the  coun- 
terparts of  their  other  vehicles  inside  and  out — every  par- 
ticle at  the  same  time.  It  is  rather  difficult  to  read  a 
book  or  even  a  letter  with  etheric  sight,  because  we  must 
look  through  other  pages  which  blur  the  one  we  wish  to 
read.  When  we  use  ordinary  clairvoyance  it  seems  as  if 
the  book  or  letter  is  spread  out  so  that  we  can  read  any 
page  or  part  without  having  to  look  through  any  other 
part.  But  when  we  look  at  an  object  with  the  sight  per- 
taining to  the  four  lower  regions  of  the  World  of  Thought, 
and  the  writer  has  personal  knowledge  of  no  higher  realms, 
we  find  that  instead  of  forms  there  are  hollow  spaces  or 
molds,  which  speak  to  us  and  tell  us  about  themselves. 
The  necessity  of  investigation  is  eliminated  from  that 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  283 

world.  There  we  .know  at  once  everything  about  whatever 
becomes  an  object  of  our  attention.  There  is,  however, 
a  curious  drawback  to  the  knowledge  gained  in  that  man- 
ner— it  dawns  upon  us  all  at  once.  The  sum  of  this  knowl- 
edge is  a  whole,  and  has  neither  beginning  nor  end.  It 
is  therefore  usually  a  herculean  task  to  unfold  it  into  an 
orderly,  sequential  concept  which  may  be  comprehensively 
stated  to  ourselves  and  others. 


QUESTION  No.  143. 

Is  it  safe  for  a  person  in  a  greatly  debilitated  nervous 
condition  to  take  occult  training  given  by  the  Rosicrucians, 
or  is  it  necessary  for  such  a  person-to  first  recover?  Is 
health  regained  by  occult  training? 


Answer:  The  only  exercises  given  publicly  by  Eosi- 
crucians  are  the  morning  and  evening  exercises.  The 
evening  exercise  consists  of  a  retrospect  of  events  of  the 
day  in  reverse  order.  During  this  review  the  aspirant 
aims  to  cultivate  a  feeling  of  the  most  sincere  contrition 
for  anything  he  may  have  done  amiss,  and  also  to  feel  in- 
tensely glad  when  he  has  been  able  to  better  his  previous 
conduct  in  any  act  during  the  past  day.  The  morning  ex- 
ercise consists  in  concentration  upon  a  high  ideal,  the 
Christ,  for  instance. 

If  a  person  of  a  nervous  temperament  will  endeavor  to 


284  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

calmly  and  quietly  perform  these  exercises,  he  will  expe- 
rience a  very  beneficial  effect,  particularly  if  he  will  strive 
to  relax  every  muscle  of  the  body  during  the  exercises. 

The  attitude  of  a  cat  watching  a  mouse  hole  affords 
an  excellent  illustration  of  relaxation.  It  sits  in  a  per- 
fectly easy  position;  calmly  and  quietly  it  waits  for  the 
appearance  of  the  mouse.  No  energy  is  dissipated  by  fret- 
fulness  or  anxiety.  It  quietly  peisists  in  the  faith  that 
sooner  or  later  opportunity  will  come.  All  its  strength  is 
reserved  for  the  supreme  moment  when  it  springs  to  secure 
its  prey.  If  the  pupil  will  completely  relax  his  muscles, 
calmly  and  quietly  review  the  day's  happenings  in  the 
evening  exercise  and  concentrate  upon  a  high  ideal  in  the 
morning  exercise,  the  nervousness  will  gradually  disappear, 
and  one  day  the  opportunity  will  come;  the  spiritual  sight 
will  unfold. 


QUESTION  No.  144. 

A  sound  "body  being  necessary  for  spiritual  unfoldment, 
what  does  the  Rosicrucian  teaching  hold  out  to  one  not 
at  present  in  the  best  physical  condition?  Will  perfect 
health  be  one  result  of  the  study  of  this  philosophy,  and  if 
the  teaching  is  practiced,  will  it  tend  to  keep  a  person  in 
good  health? 

'Answer:  The  inquirer  starts  with  a  misconception, 
namely,  that  a  sound  body  is  necessary  to  true  spiritual 
unfoldment,  and,  probably,  also  forgets  the  distinction 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  285 

between  "sound"  and  "sensitive."  Many  people  of  low 
development  have  a  most  sound  and  healthy  physical  body, 
but  are  not  at  all  sensitive  with  respect  to  spiritual  vibra- 
tions. An  illustration  will  elucidate :  The  writer  has  had 
an  alarm  clock,  a  low-priced  time-piece,  for  a  number  of 
years.  It  has  been  packed  at  times  in  a  trunk  handled 
by  baggagemen,  porters,  etc.,  in  an  exceedingly  careless 
manner,  and  yet  when  taken  out  of  the  trunk,  after  all 
the  shaking  up  and  ill-usage,  it  will  still  go  and  keep  time 
after  a  fashion,  that  is  to  say,  if  one  does  not  mind  a  few 
moments'  variation  one  way  or  the  other.  Such  a  time- 
piece is  strong  and  sound  but  not  accurate. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  chronometer  used  on  board  ships 
is  an  exceedingly  delicate  time-piece.  It  rests  upon  bal- 
ances which  always  keep  it  in  a  horizontal  position  and 
compensate  for  the  slightest  motion  of  the  ship,  so  that 
the  chronometer  may  keep  perfect  time,  for  thousands  of 
lives  are  at  times  dependent  upon  the  extreme  accuracy 
of  that  instrument.  A  captain  launched  upon  the  trackless 
ocean  knows  how  far  east  or  west  he  is  from  Greenwich, 
England,  by  means  of  this  accurate  time-piece — the 
chronometer.  "When  he  calculates  the  difference  be- 
tween noon  of  the  place  where  he  finds  himself 
and  the  time  shown  by  the  chronometer  he  has 
a  correct  gauge  of  his  location,  a  gauge  to  which 
he  trusts  the  lives  of  all  his  passengers  and  the  millions  of 
dollars'  worth  of  property  in  his  care.  A  comparison  of 
the  sensitive  chronometer  and  the  rough  and  ready  alarm 
clock  illustrates  the  difference  between  "sensitive"  and 
"sound." 

When  we  understand  the  higher  philosophies,  when  we 
live  the  life  that  is  taught  by  them,  our  body  becomes 
extremely  sensitive  and  must  be  given  more  care  than  is 


286  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

necessary  to  the  body  of  an  Indian  or  a  Xegro  in  the  wilds 
of  Africa.  They  have  no  delicately  organized  nervous 
system  like  the  white  race.  Those  who  are  interested  along 
the  lines  of  spiritual  development  are  particularly  high- 
strung,  therefore,  as  we  progress  it  becomes  necessary  to 
take  more  and  more  care  of  this  instrument.  But  we  also 
learn  the  laws  of  its  nature  and  how  to  conform  to  them. 
If  we  apply  our  knowledge  it  is  possible  for  us  to  have  a 
sensitive  instrument  and  keep  it  in  comparative  health. 

There  are  cases,  however,  when  a  sickness  is  necessary 
to  bring  about  certain  changes  in  the  body  which  are  pre- 
cursors of  a  higher  step  in  spiritual  unfoldment,  and 
under  such  conditions,  of  course,  sickness  is  a  blessing  and 
not  a  curse.  In  general,  however,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
study  of  the  highest  philosophy  will  always  tend  to  better 
one's  health,  because  "knowledge  is  power"  and  the  more 
we  know  the  better  we  are  able  to  cope  with  all  conditions, 
provided,  of  course,  we  bring  our  knowledge  into  practice 
and  live  the  life — that  we  are  not  merely  hearers  of  the 
word,  but  doers  also,  for  no  teaching  is  of  any  benefit  to  us 
unless  it  is  carried  into  our  lives  and  lived  from  day  to  day. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  287 

QUESTION  No.  145. 

In  what  way  will  it  help  us  in  Hie  life  aftar  death  if  we 
have  cultivated  clairvoyance  in  the  present  life? 


Answer:  In  a  number  of  ways.  In  the  first  place,  many 
people  have  a  great  fear  of  death;  the  very  mention  of  the 
word  death  sends  the  cold  shivers  down  their  backs,  and 
they  always  avoid  the  subject.  Fear  of  death  generates 
thought  forms  of  a  hideous  nature  and  when  a  person 
leaves  the  body  at  death  to  enter  the  Invisible  World,  he 
sees  those  dread  forms  surround  him  as  so  many  fiend^s, 
and  they  sometimes  drive  him  almost  insane.  They  are  his 
progeny,  however,  and  he  cannot  rid  himself  of  them  until 
he  learns  that  they  have  no  power  over  him  and  fearlessly 
bids  them  begone.  Then  they  vanish  as  dew  before  the 
sun. 

The  man  who  has  cultivated  clairvoyance  during  earth 
life  is  sometimes  also  tormented  on  his  first  entrance  into 
the  Invisible  World  by  various  elemental  entities  which 
take  upon  themselves  most  hideous  forms.  They  recog- 
nize in  the  neophyte  a  possible  future  master  and  seek  to 
sway  him  from  his  purpose  by  intimidation,  but  as  he  is 
usually  helped  by  a  teacher  and  is  taught  that  these  beings 
have  no  power  over  him,  he  very  quickly  overcomes  fear. 
When  later  he  leaves  his  body  at  death  ami  enters  the 
Invisible  World,  he  is  already  familiar  with  many  of  the 
sights  and  scenes  there ;  above  all  he  has  no  fear  to  hamper 
him. 


288  BOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  oSTo.  146. 

Would  the  .contemplation  of  the  God  within,  if  persist- 
ently carried  on,  aid  one  in  spiritual  growth  and  bring 
one  to  adeptship? 


Answer:  We  are  living  at  the  present  time  in  the 
workaday  Western  World,  where  it  is  our  duty  to  fill  what- 
ever niche  is  ours.  Each  of  us  has  a  work  to  do,  and  if 
we  shirk  it  for  the  sake  of  a  morbid  introspection,  we  shall 
not  only  not  grow,  but  we  shall  degenerate  spiritually. 

Some  people,  unfortunately,  think  themselves  justified 
in  leaving  their  earthly  duties  when  they  imagine  spiritual 
progress  calls  them,  but  until  we  have  fulfilled  every  duty 
here,  there  can  be  no  true  spiritual  advancement;  what- 
ever may  seem  so  will  in  the  end  turn  out  to  be  dust  and 
ashes. 

The  far  Eastern  countries  illustrate,  by  horrible  exam- 
ple, the  evil  results  of  neglect  of  material  duties  for  the 
indiscriminate  pursuit  of  what  they  imagine  to  be  spiritual 
power.  There  people  emaciate  and  deform  the  body  by 
such  practices  as  holding  an  arm  above  the  head  until  it 
withers.  That  is  not  true  spirituality  which  does  not  pro- 
mote the  good  of  the  whole  world.  It  is  sometimes  said, 
that  "every  herring  must  hang  by  its  own  gill  and  every 
tub  must  stand  upon  its  own  bottom."  But  it  is  also  true 
that  what  does  not  tend  to  lift  all  will  never  lift  anyone. 
A  deepseated  and  heartfelt  desire  to  further  the  common 
good  is  the  only  valid  justification  for  expending  the  effort 
incident  to  cultivation  of  spiritual  power.  Stories  have 
been  told  of  mothers  attending  mothers'  meetings  to  dis- 
cuss how  best  to  care  for  home  and  children,  meanwhile 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  289 

leaving  their  children  in  a  most  untidy  house  without  care. 
These  stories  are  not  merely  exaggerations  and  jokes;  they 
contain  more  truth  than  poetry.  And  the  people  who  prate 
of  spirituality,  who  desire  to  contemplate  the  angel  within, 
to  the  neglect  of  their  families  and  other  obvious  duties-, 
are  on  a  par  with  such  mothers.  The  sooner  we  awake  to 
a  realization  of  the  fact  that  no  present  duty,  however 
humble,  may  be  neglected  with  impunity  for  spiritual  work, 
however  exalted,  the  better  for  ourselves  and  all  concerned. 
We  would  advise  the  inquirer  to  read  Longfellow's  poem, 
the  "Blessed  Vision,"  which  is  very  much  in  point:  A 
monk  is  kneeling  upon  his  floor  of  stone,  when  a  beautiful 
vision  of  the  Christ  appears  to  him  just  as  the  noonday 
bell  summons  him  to  the  gate  where  the  poor  are  waiting 
for  alms  which  it  is  his  duty  to  give  to  them  each  day. 
There  arises  in  the  monk's  mind  the  question,  shall  he 
stay  and  commune  with  the  Blessed  Visitor,  or  shall  he 
leave  Him  for  the  sake  of  a  parcel  of  hungry  beggars? 
But  a  voice  within  him  says, 

"Do  your  duty,  that  is  best, 
Leaving  to  the  Lord  the  rest." 

He  follows  the  behest  of  that  voice,  leaving  the  Vision  in 
his  cell  wondering  if  it  will  be  there  when  he  returns. 
>Yet  he  feels  it  is  right  to  do  his  duty  to  others  regardless 
of  loss  to  himself,  and  when,  after  having  dealt  alms  to 
the  poor,  he  returns  to  his  cell,  the  Vision  greets  him 
with  the  words :  "Hadst  thou  stayed,  I  must  have  fled." 


290  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  1-iT. 

Has  it  not  been  recorded  that  certain  individuals  have 
developed  spiritual  power,,  clairvoyance,  sixth  sense,  or 
whatever  iue  wish  to  call  it,  by  living  a  clean  life  in  har- 
mony with  nature's  laws,  and  do  not  the  teachings  of 
modern  occultists  with  so  many  terms  of  technicality  have 
a  tendency  to  create  confusion  rather  than  bring  the  desired 
results? 


Answer:  The  path  of  development  in  all  cases  depends 
upon  the  temperament  of  the  aspirant.  There  are  two 
paths,  the  mystic  and  the  intellectual.  The  Mystic  is  usually 
devoid  of  intellectual  knowledge;  he  follows  the  dictates  of 
his  heart  and  strives  to  do  the  will  of  God  as  he  feels  it, 
lifting  himself  upward  without  being  conscious  of  any 
definite  goal,  and  in  the  end  attains  to  knowledge.  In 
the  middle  ages  people  were  not  as  intellectual  as  we  are 
nowadays,  and  those  who  felt  the  call  of  a  higher  life, 
usually  followed  the  mystic  path.  But,  during  the  last 
few  hundred  years,  since  the  advent  of  modern  science,  a 
more  intellectual  humanity  has  peopled  the  earth;  the 
head  has  completely  overruled  the  heart,  materialism  has 
dominated  all  spiritual  impulse  and  the  majority  of  think- 
ing people  do  not  believe  anything  they  cannot  touch,  taste 
or  handle.  Therefore,  it  is  necessary  that  appeal  should  be 
made  to  their  intellect  in  order  that  the  heart  may  be 
allowed  to  believe  what  the  intellect  has  sanctioned.  As 
a  response  to  this  demand  modern  systems  of  occultism 
aim  to  correlate  scientific  facts  to  spiritual  verities.  The 
materialistic  attitude  of  mind  is,  of  course,  particularly 
adopted  in  the  West,  and  the  Eosicrucian  Order  was 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  291 

founded  in  the  13th  century  to  prepare  an  antidote  for  the 
poison  of  materialism  which  could  be  administered  in  doses 
to  suit  the  exigencies  of  the  case.  Paraselsus,  Com— enius, 
Helmont,  Bacon  and  others  gave  in  a  more  veiled  manner 
the  teachings  now  being  definitely  promulgated  to  dem- 
onstrate that  science,  art  and  religion  are  a  trinity  in  unity 
which  cannot  be  separated  without  distorting  our  view. 

True  Religion  embodies  both  science  and  art,  for  it 
teaches  a  beautiful  life  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  nature. 

True  Science  is  artistic  and  religious  in  the  highest  sense, 
for  it  teaches  us  to  reverence  and  conform  to  the  laws  gov- 
erning our  well-being  and  explains  why  the  religious  life  is 
conducive  to  health  and  beauty. 

True  Art  is  as  educational  as  science  and  as  uplifting 
in  its  influence  as  religion.  In  architecture  we  have  a 
most  sublime  presentation  of  cosmic  lines  of  force  in  the' 
universe.  It  fills  the  spiritual  beholder  with  a  powerful 
devotion  and  adoration  born  of  an  awe-inspiring  concep- 
tion of  the  overwhelming  grandeur  and  majesty  of  Deity. 
Sculpture  and  painting,  music  and  literature  inspire  US' 
with  a  sense  of  the  transcendent  loveliness  of  God,  the  im- 
mutable source  and  goal  of  all  this  beautiful  world. 

Nothing  short  of  such  an  all-embracing  teaching  will 
answer  the  needs  of  a  large  and  growing  class,  therefore 
the  technico-devotional  religion  is  absolutely  necessary  at 
the  present  time. 


292  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  148. 

Is  it  possible  to  cultivate  clairvoyance  by  the  use  of  drugs f 
by  crystal  gazing  or  breathing  exercises,  and  do  these 
methods  not  bring  results  quicker  than  the  methods  you 
advocate? 


Answer:  Yes;  it  is  possible  to  cultivate  a  certain  kind 
of  clairvoyance  by  any  of  the  methods  mentioned,,  but  when 
a  man  cultivates  the  sixth  sense  by  such  means  he  is  not 
master  of  his  faculty;  the  power  of  producing  clairvoy- 
ance is  vested  in  the  crystal  and  not  in  the  man.  He  is 
in  a  similar  position  to  one  who  learns  horsemanship  at  a 
riding-academy  where  the  horses  are  trained  to  allow  them- 
selves to  be  ridden.  The  pupils  acquire  no  ability  to  deal 
with  intractable  animals,  but  simply  ride  by  permission  of 
their  mount. 

If  a  man  learns  to  break  a  wild  horse  he  can  break  others, 
and  rides  by  virtue  of  his  own  power  to  master  his  horse, 
and  when  a  man  has  used  will  power  instead  of  drugs  or 
a  crystal  to  subdue  his  body  and  cultivate  clairvoyance,  he 
has  acquired  a  soul  quality  which  enables  him  to  exercise 
his  faculty  in  all  future  lives.  But  the  crystal  gazer  and 
the  drug  fiend  have  lost  their  power  at  death,  and  must 
wait  till  they  can  obtain  drugs  or  crystals  in  the  new  life 
to  train  the  new  body,  and  thus  a  great  lo-s  of  time  and 
effort  results  from  the  use  of  such  methods.  When  we 
take  into  consideration  the  fact  that  drugs  and  breathing 
exercises  have  a  dreadfully  destructive  effect  upon  the  body, 
it  will  be  seen  that  these  methods  are  altogether  undesir- 
able. Many  a  man  is  today  in  the  insane  asylum  or  in  the 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEES  393 

grave  of  the  consumptive  on  account  of  breathing  exercises, 
and  the  effects  of  drugs  are  well  knkown. 

Besides,  there  are  various  kinds  of  clairvoyants.  There 
are  some  who  have  a  faculty  of  such  a  nature  that  the 
clairvoyant  may  be  likened  to  a  prisoner  \\ho  sits  in  his 
cell  behind  bars.  The  window  in  his  cell  opens  upon  a  cer- 
tain view;  he  cannot  escape  seeing  whatever  comes  into  the 
range  of  his  vision,  for  he  cannot  turn  away.  There  is 
also  a  shutter  before  his  window  which  he  cannot  control 
either.  Thus  at  all  times  when  that  shutter  is  open  he  must 
see  whatever  passes  outside  his  window  whether  the  sight 
pleases  him  or  not.  A  faculty  of  that  nature  is  an  unmit- 
igated curse,  for  sometimes  the  most  dreadful  scenes  are 
enacted  before  the  vision  of  such  a  clairvoyant.  The  writer 
remembers  the  case  of  a  certain  gentleman,  who  possessed 
that  kind  of  a  faculty.  Lecturing  before  a  certain  society 
at  the  time  of  the  War  in  the  Philippines,  a  battle  scene 
presented  itself  before  his  gaze.  An  encounter  was  taking 
place  at  that  moment  between  Filipinos  and  our  sol- 
diers. He  saw  horses  ripped  open  and  falling  with  entrails 
on  the  ground,  our  men  being  hewn  to  pieces  by  the  bolos  of 
the  natives,  etc.  Unable  to  shut  off  the  vision,  he  turned 
deathly  pale,  but  exercise  of  will-power  enabled  him  to 
finish  his  lecture  without  attracting  attention  from  the  gen- 
eral audience. 

There  are  other  clairvoyants  who  have  only  a  partial 
control  of  their  sight  and  who  cannot  count  on  the  power 
at  any  time.  To  this  class  belongs  the  ordinary  medium 
who  prostitutes  the  faculty  for  a  fee.  At  times,  when  the 
power  is  on,  she  may  give  exceedingly  good  readings  and 
tell  the  truth,  but  at  other  times,  when  the  power  is  off, 
there  may  be  a  temptation  to  secure  the  fees  needed  for 


294  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

office  rent  and  personal  expenses  by  simulating.  The  only 
safe  way  to  cultivate  the  faculty  of  clairvoyance  is  by 
means  of  exercises  given  by  the  mystery  schools,  but  these 
exercises  and  lessons  in  the  development  of  the  higher  fac- 
ulties are  never  sold  for  gold  or  any  material  consideration. 
They  are  always  given  without  money  as  a  reward  of 
merit.  The  man  who  possesses  this  faculty,  cultivated  by 
their  method,  has  no  off  days,  but  he  will  never  consent  to 
use  it  to  gratify  anyone's  curiosity,  for  tests  or  other  friv- 
olous purpose.  He  directs  all  his  energy  to  aid  in  uplifting 
humanity. 


QUESTION  No.  149. 
What  time  in  the  morning  is  best  for  concentration? 


Answer:  The  object  of  the  exercises,  both  morning  and 
evening,  is  to  bring  the  pupil  into  conscious  touch  with 
the  invisible  worlds,  and  there  is  no  time  so  good  as  the 
morningj  for  during  the  night  the  spirit  withdraws  from 
the  dense  body  and  enters  the  invisible  world,  leaving  the 
body  asleep  upon  the  bed ;  and  it  is  the  return  of  the  spirit 
in  the  morning  which  causes  the  body  to  awake  and  focuses 
our  consciousness  upon  the  material  world  through  the  sense 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  295 

organs.     Wordsworth  says  in  his  beautiful  "Ode  to  Im- 
mortality'' : 

"Birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting: 
The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life  star, 
Has  elsewhere  had  its  setting  and  cometh  from  afar. 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness  nor  yet  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come  from  God  who  is 
our  home. 

"Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy, 
The  shades  of  prison  house  begin  to  close 
Around  the  growing  boy ; 

But  still  he  sees  the  light  and  whence  it  flows 
He  feels  it  in  his  joy. 

"The  youth  who  daily  further  from  the  east 
Must  travel,  still  is  Nature's  priest, 
And  by  the  vision  splendid  is  on  his  way  attended. 
At  last  the  man  perceives  it  fade  away 
And  melt  into  the  light  of  common  day." 

During  the  life  of  a  person,  the  Inner  Worlds  are  closest 
to  him  in  childhood's  years,  as  Wordsworth  says,  for  that  is 
life's  morning,  and  so  it  is  with  us ;  wrhen  we  waken  in  the 
morning  we  are  in  closer  touch  with  the  Spirit  Worlds  than 
at  any  other  time  of  day,  and  then  it  is  easiest  to  return  to 
them.  Therefore,  the  pupil  should  commence  his  exercises 
the  very  moment  he  wakens,  without  allowing  his  mind  to 
rest  upon  anything  else.  He  should  be  particular  to  relax 
his  body  perfectly  so  that  no  muscle  is  tense  and  fix  his 
mind  upon  a  high  ideal  or  upon  the  first  five  verses  of  the 
Gospel  according  to  St.  John,  either  sentence  by  sentence, 


296  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

or  as  a  whole.  That  will  put  him  in  touch  with  cosmic 
vibrations.  He  should  still  the  senses  so  that  he  can  hear 
nothing  and  see  nothing  in  his  room.  When  he  succeeds 
the  scenes  of  the  Desire  World  will  present  themselves  to 
his  inner  vision.  First  spasmodically,  later  more  and  more 
clearly,  as  practice  makes  him  perfect. 

For  most  persons,  however,  the  evening  exercise  is  of 
the  greater  importance  and  will  probably  bring  results 
quicker,  because  that  works  upon  the  life  we  lead  and 
ennobles  us  in  a  way  that  the  morning  exercise  cannot. 


QUESTION  No.  150. 

It  is  difficult  for  me  to  review  the  events  of  the  day  in 
reverse  order  wlien  doing  my  evening  exercises.  Is  this 
absolutely  necessary,  and  if  so,  w\ 


Answer:  In  the  evening  exercise  the  pupil  reviews  and 
judges  his  life  for  that  day.  He  is  then  doing  the  work 
ordinarily  reserved  to  Purgatory  and  the  First  Heaven. 
There  the  life  is  lived  backward  from  effects  to  causes  in 
order  that  we  may  see  how  and  wliy  suffering  results  from 
our  mistakes.  Eeviewing  our  daily  life,  in  reverse  order, 
from  effects  to  causes,  we  note  that  our  troubles  and  trials 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  297 

have  all  been  caused  by  previous  acts  during  the  past  day 
or  some  other  day  of  our  life. 

It  is  our  task  to  find  that  cause  and  to  analyze  the 
reason  which  leads  up  to  every  development,  so  that  we  may 
know  in  future  how  to  take  advantage  of  opportunities  for 
soul  growth  and  avoid  evil.  Thus  if  we  follow  up  the  day's 
experience  in  reverse  order  we  profit  by  the  experiences 
gained  right  away  instead  of  waiting  until  we  have  passed 
out  of  this  life  and  are  forced  to  reap  the  fruits  of  our 
deeds  in  Purgatory  and  the  First  Heaven. 


QUESTION  No.  151. 

What  value  are  breathing  exercises  in  developing  body 
and  mind? 


Answer:  The  value  of  breathing  exercises  depends  upon 
the  knowledge  of  the  person  who  gives  them.  Breathing 
exercises  given  in  books  and  by  so-called  teachers,  who 
advertise  courses  in  psychic  development,  are  exceedingly 
dangerous  and  many  a  person  is  in  the  insane  asylum 
today  on  account  of  having  attempted  to  use  them,  or, 
perhaps,  sleeps  under  the  sod  in  the  grave  of  a  consump- 
tive. 


298  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Every  human  being  is  an  individual  and  needs  indi- 
vidual exercises.  The  appropriate  exercises  can  only  he 
given  by  a  person  who  is  clairvoyant  and  also  able  to 
watch  the  growth  of  ceitain  etheric  organs  in  the  physical 
body  of  his  pupil.  He  must  also  know  what  this  growth 
should  be  in  each  individual  case.  Anyone  who  has  the 
ability  to  thus  give  this  individual  exercise  also  knows 
how  to  check  undesirable  developments.  But  such  a 
teacher  does  not  advertise  psychic  developments  for  so 
much  per  lesson.  Such  exercises  are  never  sold  for  money, 
but  are  always  given  for  merit.  ' 

The  reason  is  evident..  One  who  has  the  faculty  of 
clairvoyance  at  command  has  an  enormous  power;  if  mis- 
used it  can  work  more  harm  than  any  earthly  weapon.  It 
could  cause  a  panic  in  the  markets  of  the  world,  bring 
about  wars  and  enmities  among  people  anywhere  and 
everywhere,  and  thus  the  possessor  would  become  a  scourge 
to  society  unless  he  were  also  of  such  a  mind  that  he  would 
never  use  his  faculty  save  for  good.  The  powers  behind 
evolution,  the  Elder  Brothers  of  humanity  who  have  de- 
veloped these  powers  and  are  capable  of  teaching  them, 
take  exceeding  good  .care  that  no  one  shall  attain  to  tins 
power  until  they  have  given  proofs  of  unselfishness  and 
bave  been  bound  by  vows  and  restrictions.  Therefore  it 
may  be  said  that  no  one  should  undertake  breathing  exer- 
cises unless  prescribed  by  the  proper  teacher,  and  neither 
is  it  necessary  to  run  about  the  world  seeking  such  n 
teacher.  The  aspirant  ought  rather  to  strive  to  do  good 
and  use  the  faculties  which  he  now  possesses  in  the  environ- 
ment where  he  is,  for  that  is  the  only  proper  stepping 
stone  towards  a  higher  power.  When  he  has  sufficiently 
fitted  himself,  the  teacher  will  appear  in  his  life  and  ho 
will  not  for  a  moment  be  in  doubt  of  the  genuineness  of 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  299 

the  teaching  that  will  then  be  given.     In  this  respect  we 
may  quote  a  little  poem  that  is  exceedingly  beautiful : 

"Don't  waste  your  time  in  longing 

For  bright,  impossible  things; 
Don't  sit  supinely  waiting 

For  the  sprouting  of  angel  wings. 
Don't  scorn  to  be  a  rushlight, 

Everyone  can  not  be  a  star; 
But  brighten  some  of  the  darkness 

By  shining  just  where  you  are. 

"There's  need  of  the  tiniest  candle 

As  well  as  the  garish  sun, 
And  the  humblest  deed  is  ennobled 

When  it  is  worthily  done ; 
You  may  never  be  called  on  to  brighten 

Darkened  regions  afar, 
So  fill  day  by  day  your  mission 

By  shining  just  where  you  are." 


300  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  152. 

Is  not  the  Invisible  World  of  which  you  speak  very 
unreal  and  shadowy  in  comparison  to  this  world  in  which 
we  now  live? 


Answer:  God  is  the  Prime  Eeality.  The  Desire  World 
and  the  World  of  Thought  are  one  and  two  steps  nearer 
to  that  central  source  of  energy  and  hence  they  are  more 
real.  By  "real"  the  inquirer  presumahly  means  that  in 
this  world  the  forms  are  stable  and  do  not  easily  change, 
whereas  in  the  Invisible  Worlds  they  are  more  than  plastic 
and  change  with  the  rapidity  of  thought,  but  the  life 
within  is  the  reality  and  not  the  form.  Stability  is  not  a 
mark  of  reality.  Everything  in  the  world  which  is  now 
crystallized  and  stable  has  first  existed  in  a  plastic  con- 
dition in  the  Invisible  World.  Everything  which  has  been 
made  by  the  hand  of  man  was  first  a  thought  form  in  the 
mind  of  its  maker. 

When  an  architect  desires  to  build  a  house,  he  first 
thinks  it  out.  He  seeks  to  form  an  idea  as  clearly  as 
possible  of  what  the  house  is  to  be.  Could  the 'Workmen 
see  the  thought  form  in  the  mind  of  the  architect,  they 
would  be  able  to  work  from  that  without  plans,  but  the 
architect's  idea  is  hidden  from  them  by  the  veil  of  flesh 
and,  therefore,  it  is  necessary  for  the  architect  to  put  his 
idea  on  paper  and  make  a  plan.  This  is  the  first  stage  of 
crystallization ;  afterward  the  workmen  build  the  house  in 
iron,  wood  and  stone. 

According  to  the  ideas  of  most  people  this  house  is  much 
more  real  than  the  thought  form  in  the  mind  of  the  archi- 
tect, but  in  reality  that  is  not  so.  The  concrete  house 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  3Q1 

may  be  destroyed  in  a  moment  by  earthquake,  by  dyna- 
mite, or  in  other  ways,  but  the  idea  in  the  architect's  mind 
will  last  as  long  as  he  lives  and  from  that  idea  a  new 
house,  or  a  dozen,  may  be  built  at  any  time,  yes,  even  after 
the  death  of  the  architect  the  house  will  still  exist  as  a 
model  in  the  ether,  and  any  clairvoyant  capable  of  con- 
tacting the  Invisible  Worlds  and  reading  in  the  memory 
of  nature  is  capable  of  seeing  it  there  at  any  time,  though 
millions  of  years  may  elapse.  Thus  the  Invisible  World 
is  the  source  and  everlasting  record  of  all  that  is  or  was 
here,  hence  it  is  the  prime  reality. 


SECTION  VII 

Questions  concerning 

ASTROLOGY 


O 

•T1 

H 
rc 


O   « 


S 

X 

o 

c 


2 

H 


QUESTION  No.  153. 

Is  it  possible  that  astrology  and  palmistry  can  be  true, 
inasmuch  as  we  could  avert  coming  disaster  by  being  fore- 
ivarned  in  that  manner?  And  would  this  not  interfere 
with  our  destiny? 


Answer:  The  destiny  which  we  generate  under  the  law 
of  causation  by  our  own  acts  may  be  divided  into  three 
kinds.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  destiny  which  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case  we  cannot  expiate  in  the  pres- 
ent life;  for  instance,  when  a  man  commits  murder, 
whether  he  suffers  the  penalty  for  it  here  or  not,  the  prison 
life  usually  does  not  have  the  effect  of  making  him  more 
mellow  and  kind.  Sometimes  it  does  the  reverse ;  it  makes 
him  bitter  and  turns  his  hand  against  all.  Before  nature 
will  be  satisfied,  he  must  learn  that  he  may  not  deprive 
a  fellow  being  of  his  form ;  he  must  learn  to  serve.  Thus 
the  case  is  not  satisfied  until  he  has  had  the  opportunity 
at  a  future  time  to  render  service  of  importance  to  his  pre- 
vious victim. 

A  second  kind  of  destiny  we  reap  from  day  to  day ;  it  is, 
we  might  say,  as  a  cash  transaction,  we  pay  as  we  go.  If  we 
overeat,  we  have  indigestion;  if  we  go  out  without  suffi- 
cient clothing,  we  take  cold,  etc. 

A  third  kind  is  called  "ripe"  or  "mature"  destiny.  It 
is  the  result  of  our  actions  in  past  lives  or  in  our  early 
years,  which  has  matured  into  effect  so  far  that  it  is  em- 

305 


306  EOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

bodied  in  the  pictures  shown  a  spirit  as  the  panorama  of 
its  coming  life  when  starting  toward  rebirth.  Once  the 
spirit  has  chosen  a  certain  life  with  the  "ripe"  destiny  al- 
lotted for  liquidation  by  the  Recording  Angels,  it  is  bound 
by  its  choice.  The  tendencies  to  act  in  a  manner  conducive 
to  adjustment  of  this  mature  destiny  are  inherent  in  the 
body  and  inscribed  in  the  stars,  for  the  stellar  influences 
are  the  source  of  man's  activity,  and  therefore  this  mature 
destiny  may  be  seen  from  the  horoscope  at  birth,  standing 
out  with  exceeding  clearness,  so  that  it  is  very  plain  and 
patent  to  the  spiritually  minded  astrologer  or  palmist. 
He  can  also  see  the  other  kinds  of  destiny  and  may  some- 
times mistake  one  kind  for  the  other  and  hence  be  wrong 
in  his  view  as  to  whether  an  event  can  be  avoided  or  not. 
If  it  is  "ripe"  destiny,  it  will  be  impossible  to  avoid  it 
despite  all  warnings,  as  perhaps  the  following  instance  may 
serve  to  show: 

In  1906  the  writer  gave  some  lessons  in  astrology  to  Mr. 
L.,  a  well  known  lecturer,  in  Los  Angeles,  using  the  gen- 
tleman's own  horoscope  for  purposes  of  instruction,  as  that 
enables  the  pupil  to  check  the  truth  of  the  interpretations 
of  the  symbols  so  far  as  the  past  is  concerned,  and  lends 
more  interest  than  \vhen  using  the  horoscope  of  a  stranger. 
It  was  found  that  Mr.  L.  had  had  a  number  of  accidents ; 
these  were  figured  to  the  day  when  they  happened.  An 
impending  accident,  due  to  occur  at  the  time  of  the  new 
moon,  July  21,  1906,  was  also  noted.  Mr.  L.  was,  there- 
fore, warned  to  stay  in  the  house  on  that  day  and  the 
seventh  day  after,  the  latter  date  being  regarded  as  the 
more  dangerous.  He  was  told  that  there  would  be  danger 
of  an  accident  to  the  lower  part  of  the  head,  the  neck, 
breast  and  arms,  in  consequence  of  a  short  journey  by 
bicycle,  buggy  or  electric  car. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  3Q7 

Mr.  L.  was  much  impressed  and  promised  to  stay  at  home 
on  the  dates  named.  The  writer  went  North  and  from 
there  wrote  reminding  Mr.  L.  of  his  danger  just  before  the 
time  it  was  due.  He  received  a  letter  assuring  him  that 
Mr.  L.  would  be  careful. 

The  next  communication  regarding  the  matter  came 
from  a  mutual  friend  and  stated  that  Mr.  L.  had  gone  to 
Sierra  Madre  to  lecture  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  July  and 
had  been  hurt  in  the  places  mentioned  in  the  prediction 
by  a  collision  with  a  locomotive.  The  writer  wondered  why 
his  instructions  had  been  so  disregarded,  and  the  answer 
came  three  months  later  when  Mr.  L.  thanked  him  for  the 
information  which  had  been  very  valuable  to  him,  as  he 
said,  in  proving  the  truth  of  astrology.  The  reason  for 
the  accident  was  that  he  had  forgotten  the  date.  He  wrote 
"I  thought  the  28th  was  the  29th/' 

This  case,  in  the  estimation  of  the  writer,  shows  that 
mature  destiny  cannot  be  interfered  with  and  that  we  ma}'- 
safely  do  anything  we  can  to  avoid  impending  danger  with- 
out fear  of  interfering  with  the  law  of  causation.  There 
are  invisible  agencies  around  us  to  counteract  any  move 
upon  our  part  which  would  interfere,  and  in  the  opinion 
of  the  writer  they  were  responsible  for  Mr.  L.'s  confusion 
of  dates. 


308  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  154. 

Is  it  wrong  to  use  palmistry,  astrology  or  phrenology  as 
a  means  of  livelihood? 


Answer:  What  is  right  or  wrong  depends  upon  the 
viewpoint  of  the  individual.  Less  than  fifty  years  ago  it 
was  thought  right  to  kill  a  refractory  negro.  His  master 
could  do  so  with  impunity  as  he  may  nowadays  kill  a  hog 
or  a  horse.  Today  we  would  consider  that  murder.  Some 
people  today  look  upon  astrology  as  merely  a  matter  of 
calculation  and  upon  palmistry  and  phrenology  as  material 
sciences,  without  any  spiritual  significance.  Who  thus 
views  these  sciences  would  be  blameless  if  he  used  them  as 
a  means  of  livelihood,  while  anyone  who  had  obtained  an 
idea  of  the  spiritual  side  of  these  sciences  would,  in  the 
estimation  of  the  writer,  be  prostituting  his  knowledge. 
Besides,  no  one  who  thus  belittles  these  spiritual  sciences 
can  ever  give  the  highest  and  best  advice  to  his  clients, 
for  the  glimmer  of  gold  will  always  obscure  the  judgment. 
Such  has  been  the  experience  of  the  writer  and  many  others 
who  hold  the  same  views.  The  inquirer,  at  any  rate,  would 
do  wrong  to  use  his  knowledge  of  these  spiritual  sciences 
for  a  livelihood,  for  his  question  shows  that  he  must  have 
misgivings;  and  then  he  is  already  judged  from  within  if 
he  prostitutes  his  talent. 

There  is  a  reward  that  is  much  more  than  gold.  If 
we  use  our  knowledge  to  heal  and  to  help  we  shall  never 
lack  means  of  living  and  we  shall  be  laying  up  treasure  in 
heaven  where  neither  moth  nor  rust  corrupt.  Greater  and 
better  opportunities  for  service  will  be  ours  if  we  devote  our 
talents  to  unselfish  service. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  3Q9 

QUESTION  No.  155. 

Are  Mars,  Jupiter  and  other  planets  inhabited;  if  so, 
are  those  people  superior  to  the  people  on  the  earth;  do 
the  souls  from  the  earth  ever  reincarnate  on  other  planets 
and  vice  versa? 


Answer:  All  the  planets  in  the  solar  system  are  inhab- 
ited and  are  fields  of  evolution  for  different  classes  of 
spirits  at  various  stages  of  development.  The  planets 
nearest  to  the  sun  support  the  beings  which  are  most 
evolved.  Jupiter  forms  an  exception  to  this  rule;  it  is 
peopled  by  a  humanity  slightly  higher  than  that  of  the 
earth. 

The  principle  is  this :  The  highest  vibrations  exist  in 
the  central  sun,  which  at  one  time  contained  all  the  beings 
now  dwelling  upon  the  different  planets.  But  not  all  were 
able  to  sustain  the  terrific  vibrations  of  that  central  fire- 
mist;  therefore,  a  crystallization  took  place  at  the  poles; 
gradually  the  crystallized  matter  gravitated  toward  the 
equator  and  was  expelled,  with  the  spirits  dwelling  thereon. 
That  first  emanation  became  Uranus.  Later  on  other 
classes  of  spirits  have  crystallized  a  part  of  the  sun  and  been 
expelled  to  move  in  orbits  at  varying  distances  from  the 
central  source,  according  to  the  rate  of  vibration  necessary 
for  the  unfoldment  of  the  spirits  upon  them,  forming 
eventually  the  solar  system  as  we  know  it  now. 

Each  class  of  spirits  stays  in  its  environment,  being 
under  the  direct  tutelage  and  guidance  of  one  of  the 
Planetary  Spirits  whose  body  is  the  planet  where  they 
dwell.  As  the  spirits  have  been  incarnated  on  different 
planets  because  they  are  at  widely  different  stages  of  spir- 


310  KOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

itual  unfoldment,  they  do  not  usually  incarnate  upon  the 
other  planets,  save  that  at  times  some  from  the  inner  planets 
are  sent  as  teachers  to  the  outer  spheres.  This,  at  least, 
was  the  case  when  our  humanity  needed  teachers,  embodied 
and  visible.  Then  some  of  the  beings  from  Venus  and 
Mercury  were  brought  to  the  earth  to  guide  nascent  hu- 
manity. They  were  known  as  messengers  of  the  Gods  and 
these  Lords  from  Venus  were  the  first  kings  and  rulers 
over  the  human  race.  Later  on  the  most  precocious  among 
human  beings  were  turned  over  to  the  Lords  of  Mercury 
who  initiated  them  into  the  mysteries  and  these,  in  turn, 
became  the  rulers  over  their  brethren.  They  were  then  truly 
kings  by  t'lt.e  grace  of  God,  ruling  the  people  for  their  up- 
liftment  and  good,  regardless  of  power  and  self  aggrandize- 
ment. 


QUESTION  No.  156. 

Does  not  the  nebular  theory  account  for  the  existence  of 
the  universe  in  a  much  more  ".cientific  manner  than  the 
creation  stories  of  the  Bible? 


Answer:  The  nebular  theory  was  rejected  by  Herbert 
Spencer  because,  like  the  Bible,  it  postulates  a  First  Cause. 

Viewed  briefly,  the  theory  is  this,  that  at  one  time  there 
appeared  in  space  a  firemist,  spontaneously.  Within  that 
firemist,  currents  started,  also  spontaneously,  and  that  under 


QUESTIONS  AI\D  ANSWERS  311 

the  impact  of  these  currents,  the  firemist  took  a  spherical 
shape,  revolving  with  intense  rapidity.  The  centrifugal 
force  caused  it  to  throw  off  p.  ring  which  disintegrated, 
the  fragments  coalesced  and  became  a  planet  revolving  in 
an  orbit  around  tlie  central  mass.  Thus  different  planets 
were  brought  into  existence  one  after  another.  They  cooled 
gradually,  and  at  last  the  solar  system  was  complete.  Upon 
one  of  these  planets  at  least,  there  appeared,  spontaneously, 
Life,  or  protoplasm,  which  gradually  evolved  through  the 
different  classes  of  Radiates,  Mollusks,  Articulates  and 
Vertebrates,  finally  flowering  in  man,  who  is  the  highest 
Intelligence  in  the  Cosmos,  lord  of  all  he  surveys. 

This  the  scientist  says,  with  a  wise  mien,  and  may  also 
add:  "Don't  you  see  how  simple  and  reasonable  this  is? 
If  not,  let  me  show  you  by  a  demonstration."  He  may 
then  take  a  basin  full  of  water  and  pour  a  little  oil  upon  the 
surface,  the  water  to  represent  space  and  the  oil  the  fire- 
mist.  He  may  then  take  a  needle  and  commence  to  stir 
the  oil  in  imitation  of  the  currents  generated  in  the  fire- 
mist,  and  under  his  stirring  the  oil  will  take  a  spherical 
shape.  Gradually  the  sphere  will  bulge  at  the  equator, 
a  ring  will  be  thrown  off  and  shapo  itself  into  a  planet 
which  will  revolve  around  its  primary  and  the  scientist  will 
then  triumphantly  say:  "There,  don't  you  see  how  natnr.nl 
it  is,  not  the  slightest  need  for  your  God  !'' 

We  only  woncler  that  the  men  who  have  a  mind  capable 
of  conceiving  this  splendid  demonstration  can  at  the  same 
time  be  so  dull  that  they  do  not  see  thai:  they,  themselves, 
take  the  place  of  God,  who  thought  out  and  brought  into 
being  the  universe  as  the  scientists  conceived  their  demon- 
stration, and  carried  it  into  execution.  God  by  his  power 
preserves  our  universe  and  moves  the  planets  as  the  scientist 
moves  his  oil-planet,  and  were  God  to  cease  his  activity  for 


312  EOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

a  single  moment,  cosmos  would  instantly  resolve  itself 
into  a  conglomerate  chaos  as  the  oil-sun  and  planet  cease 
to  be  the  moment  the  scientist  discontinues  his  operation. 

Therefore,  so  far  from  refuting  the  assertion  of  the  Bible 
that  God  is  the  Creator  and  sustainer  of  the  cosmos,  the 
nebular  theory  demonstrates  the  necessity  for  divine  inter- 
ference most  thoroughly,  and  when  properly  understood, 
there  is  no  essential  difference  between  the  scientific  and 
religious  conception. 


QUESTION  No.  157. 
"\Yhat  are  comets? 


Answer:  Contemplating  the  wisdom  of  the  Great  Cre- 
ative Hierarchies  as  compared  with  our  own,  we  would  nat- 
urally feel  inclined  to  think  that  they  are  above  mistakes; 
hut  upon  second  thought  it  appears  reasonable  that  as  they 
are  yet  evolving,  though  learning  lessons  far  beyond  us, 
they  must  at  times  make  mistakes.  They  are  active  in  the 
Macrocosm,  the  "Great  World/'  the  Body  of  God,  as  we 
are  working  in  the  Microcosm,  the  "Little  World,"  com- 
posed of  our  different  vehicles,  and  just  as  we  make  mis- 
takes in  handling  our  affairs  and  in  learning  the  lessons  we 
are  learning,  so  also  the  Great  Creative  Hierarchies  at  times 
fail  in  their  labors. 

We  know  that  when  bringing  a  child  to  birth  there  may 


AiND   AiNfcJWEltfci 

be  a  miscarriage.  The  foetus  is  then  expelled  from  the 
system  and  at  once  commences  to  decay.  There  is  a  sim- 
ilar risk  when  a  world  is  in  the  making,  namely,  that  it 
crystallizes  or  sets  before  it  has  completed  the  period  of 
gestation  in  the  Desire  World.  Then  it  has  not  been  prop- 
erly molded,  and  may  be  likened  to  plaster  of  Paris  mixed 
by  a  sculptor  to  form  a  beautiful  statue,  but  set  before  it 
was  molded — a  shapeless,  useless  mass.  When  this  hap- 
pens in  the  making  of  the  world,  we  have  what  is  known 
as  a  comet,  and  the  elliptic  orbit  which  it  travels  is  tho 
path  of  a  current  in  the  Desire  World.  We  have  something 
similar  to  the  comets  in  the  appearance  of  the  Ego  before 
it  enters  the  womb  of  the  mother.  Then  that  is  also  such 
a  bell-shaped  thing  with  a  n  ucleus  at  the  top  and  a  great 
deal  of  material  flowing  behind  it  similar  to  the  tail  of  the 
comet.  And  these  bell  shaped  reincarnating  Egos  also 
traverse  elliptic  orbits  around  the  earth,  until  it  is  neces- 
sary for  them  to  enter  the  womb  of  the  future  mother. 


314  ROSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  158. 

Does  the  movement  of  a  planet  through  space  create  a 
noise? 


Answer:  Pythagoras'  spoke  of  the  lurmony  of  the 
spheres,  and  he  did  not  HFC  that  expression  simply  as  a 
poetical  allusion.  There  is  such  a  harmony.  We  are  told 
by  John  that  in  the  beginning  was  tha  wovd  .  .  .  and 
without  it  was  nothing  made  that  was  made.  That  was 
the  creative  fiat  which  first  started  the  world  into  being. 
The  familiar  experiment  of  placing  sand  upon  a  glass  plate 
and  creating  geometrical  figures  by  bowing  the  edge  with 
a  violin  bow,  illustrates  the  creative  ability  of  sound.  And 
we  hear  of  celestial  music,  for  from  the  point  of  the  Heaven 
World,  everything  is  first  created  in  terms  of  sound,  which 
then  molds  concrete  matter  into  the  multitudinous  forms 
which  we  see  around  us. 

In  the  occultist's  sphere  of  vision,  the  whole  solar  sys- 
tem is  one  vast  musical  instrument,  spoken  of  in  the  Greek 
Mythology  as  "the  seven-stringed  lyre  of  Apollo,  the  radiant 
Sun  God."  As  there  are  twelve  semi-tones  in  the  chro- 
matic scale,  so  we  have  in  the  heavens,  twelve  signs  of  the 
zodiac,  and  as  we  have  the  seven  white  keys  or  whole  tones 
on  the  keyboard  of  the  piano,  we  have  seven  planets.  The 
signs  of  the  zodiac  may  be  said  to  be  the  sounding-board 
of  the  cosmic  harp  and  the  seven  planets  are  the  strings; 
they  emit  different  sounds  as  they  pass  through  the  various 
signs,  and  therefore  they  influence  mankind  in  diverse 
manner.  Should  the  harmony  fail  for  one  single  moment, 
should  there  be  the  slightest  discord  in  that  heavenly  band, 
this  whole  universe  as  such  must  crumble.  For  music 


C^O'^bTIOXS  AND  ANSWERS  S13 

can  destroy  as  well  as  build.  This  has  been  well  proven 
by  great  musicians.  For  instance,  the  grandson  of  the 
immortal  Felix  Mendelssohn  has  for  several  years  been  ex- 
perimenting with  the  power  of  sound  in  that  direction.  He 
has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  once  we  find  the  keynote 
of  a  building,  bridge  or  other  structure,  we  may  raze  that 
structure  to  the  ground  by  sounding  that  note  sufficiently 
loud  and  long.  An  illustration  in  point  occurs  to  the. 
writer : 

"A  few  years  ago  a  band  of  musicians  were  rehearsing 
near  an  old  ruin  outside  the  city  of  Heidelberg,  Germany. 
At  one  point  in  their  exercises  they  came  to  an  extremely 
high  pitched  and  long  continued  note,  and  as  they  sounded 
it  the  massive  wall  of  the  nearby  ruin  tumbled  to  the 
ground  with  a  tremendous  crash.  They  had  struck  the 
keynote  of  that  wall  and  it  fell."  In  view  of  these  facts, 
our  supercilious  smiles  of  bygone  days  when  listening  to 
the  story  of  Joshua  and  the  walls  of  Jericho  are  no  longer 
in  place.  The  sound  of  the  ram's  horn  undoubtedly  struck 
the  keynote  of  those  walls  which  had  been  much  sensitized 
by  the  rhythmic  tramp  of  his  army  in  preparation  for  this 
final  climax.  The  rhythmic  tramp  of  many  feet  will  de- 
stroy any  bridge,  and  therefore  soldiers  are  instructed  to 
break  step  when  crossing  a  bridge.  So  that  we  may  say 
in  answer  to  the  question  that  every  planet  gives  out  a  cer- 
tain keynote  which  is  the  sum  total  of  all  the  noises  upon 
it,  blended  and  harmonized  by  the  indwelling  Planetary 
Spirit.  That  sound  can  be  heard  by  the  spirit  ear.  As 
Goethe  says : 

"The  sun  intones  his  ancient  song 
Mid  rival  chant  of  brother  spheres ; 
His  prescribed  course  he  speeds  along 
In  thunderous  way,  throughout  the  years." 


316  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

This,  from  the  first  part  of  Faust,  the  prologue  in  heaven. 
And  also  in  the  second  part  of  Faust,  spirits  of  air  greet 
the  rising  sun  with  the  words : 

"Sound  unto  the  spirit  ear  proclaims  the  new  born  day 
is  here ; 

Rocky  gates  are  creaking,  rattling, 

Phoebus'  wheels  are  rolling,  singing — 

What  sound  intense  the  light  is  bringing/3 


QUESTION  Xo.  159. 

What  is  the  esoteric  significance  of  the  use  of  the  names 
of  the  twelve  sons  of  Jacob  in  connection  with  the  twelve 
signs  of  the  zodiac,  and  are  these  used  in  connection  with 
the  earth's  zodiac  or  the  sun's  zodiac,  or  both  ? 


Answer:  There  is  only  one  zodiac,  the  twelve  constella- 
tions which  we  call  Aries,  Taurus,  etc.  These  are  the  stars, 
located  in  a  narrow  belt  about  eight  degrees  each  side  of 
the  ecliptic,  or  the  sun's  path,  as  viewed  from  the  earth. 
The  twelve  sons  and  one  daughter  of  Jacob  are  identified 
with  the  twelve  constellations,  because  Josephus  mentions 
that  the  Israelites  wandering  in  the  wilderness  carried  em- 
blems of  these  twelve  groups  of  stars  on  their  banner.  In 
the  49th  chapter  of  Genesis  and  the  33rd  chapter  of  Deu- 
teronomy, Jacob  pronounces  blessings  upon  his  twelve  sons 
in  such  a  manner  that  it  is  impossible  to  one  who  knows 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  317 

astronomy  not  to  see  a  resemblance  between  the  descrip- 
tion of  these  sons  and  the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac. 

Also,  if  we  regard  the  manner  of  pitching  the  camp  of 
the  Israelites — grouping  the  twelve  tribes  around  the  taber- 
nacle where  the  seven  branched  candlestick  was — we  see 
again  a  reference  to  the  astronomical  disposition  of  the 
twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac  outside  of  the  seven  planets, 
which  are  the  lights  of  the  solar  system,  the  House  of 
God. 

The  spiritual  reason  of  the  analogy  between  Jacob,  his 
wives,  their  children  and  the  cosmos,  may  be  found  in  the 
hermetic  axiom,  as  above,  so  below.  Jacob,  with  his  four 
wives,  symbolize  the  sun  and  the  four  phases  of  the  moon, 
which  are  the  givers  of  life  to  all  that  live  upon  earth; 
the  twelve  sons  and  one  daughter  symbolize  the  Creative 
Hierarchies,  which  have  been  active  in  the  evolution  of  our 
solar  system  and  have  brought  not  only  humanity  but  also 
all  the  various  other  kingdoms  to  their  present  stage  of 
evolutionary  attainment,  and  are  working  with  them  now 
in  order  to  still  further  develop  them  into  spiritual  beings. 
It  was  they  who  made  man  in  their  likeness.  Even  to  this 
day  humanity  is  stamped  with  the  characteristics  of  the 
twelve  celestial  signs.  Therefore  the  original  Semites,  who 
were  to  be  the  progenitors  of  a  new  race,  were  divided  into 
twelve  classes  by  their  leader,  each  class  representing  one 
of  the  constellations. 


318  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  Xo.  160. 

Can  you  givet  an  idea  of  the  difference  between  helio- 
centric and  geocentric  astrology?  Is  the  geocentric  con- 
cerned only  with  the  affairs  of  this  earth,  the  material  life, 
and  the  heliocentric  with  the  soul  or  the  spiritual  side? 
The  sun,  being  the  spiritual  planet  and  the  ruler  of  our 
solar  system,  would  lead  to  this  conclusion,  inasmuch  as 
ive  use  the  sun's  zodiac  in  heliocentric  astrology  and  the 
earth's  zodiac  in  geocentric.  Can  predictions  in  this  life 
ever  be  made  by  the  sun's  zodiac,  or  is  the  latter  simply 
concerned  with  the  spiritual  side  of  a  persons  nature? 


Answer:  One  of  the  objections  raised  to  the  ancient 
system  of  astrology  is  that  it  regards  the  earth  as  the  centre 
of  the  solar  system  in  the  same  manner  as  the  ancients 
did,  and  that  since  Copernicus  showed  us  that  the  planets 
move  around  the  sun,  many  people  regard  astrology  as  "an 
exploded  science,"  a  palpably  proven  fallacy,  and  in  order 
to  overcome  this  objection,  certain  astrologers  in  modern 
times  have  invented  what  is  called  "Heliocentric  Astrol- 
ogy," which  regards  the  sun  as  the  centre  of  our  solar  sys- 
tem and  the  planets  as  moving  about  it. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that,  scientifically  speaking,  the  geo- 
centric system  of  astrology,  which  regards  the  earth  as  a 
centre,  is  incorrect.  And  it  is  wrong  when  we  say  that  the 
sun  is  in  Cancer  when  it  is  really  the  earth  traveling  in  its 
orbit  that  has  come  to  the  sign  Capricorn  and,  therefore, 
it  appears  to  us  here  upon  the  earth  as  if  the  sun  were  in 
Cancer.  But  that  is  not  the  crux ;  it  really  does  not  matter 
which  of  the  two  bodies  has  moved,  the  astrologer  judges 
by  the  positions  of  the  planets  relative  to  the  earth.  And 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  319 

it  Is  much  more  convenient  to  regard  the  planets  as  mov- 
ing round  the  earth  as  the  center  than  it  is  to  use  the 
opposite  system,  for  in  the  geocentric  system  we  note  the 
relationships  of  the  planets  as  they  appear  from  our  earth 
and  note  the  effects  upon  various  people  at  the  time  when 
such  planetary  influences  were  felt,  and  so,  by  experience, 
we  have  come  to  our  present  system  of  judgment,  which 
is,  therefore,  as  true  today  as  it  ever  was.  "The  proof  of 
the  pudding  is  in  the  eating,"  says  the  homely  old  proverb. 
The  proof  of  astrology  is  in  the  truth  of  its  predictions, 
and  no  one  who  has  honestly  studied  this  science  and  has 
tried  to  test  it  for  himself  can  fail  to  find  this  truth. 

Predictions  sometimes  fail  because  the  astrologer  mis- 
interprets, but  even  allowing  for  the  fallibility  of  the  as- 
trologer, there  is,  nevertheless,  such  a  mass  of  predictions 
which  come  true  that  it  is  quite  beyond  explanation  as  a 
coincidence. 

The  geocentric  system  is  correct  and  takes  in  all  sides 
of  man's  nature,  not  only  the  material  manifestation  but 
also  the  spiritual  side.  The  heliocentric  system,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  been  trumped  up  by  people  who  aim  to 
conform  to  science  and  have  no  concern  with  the  spiritual 
side  of  nature,  therefore  that  is  the  least  satisfactory.  Bo- 
sides,  while  those  who  have  used  the  geocentric  astrology" 
for  many  centuries  have  recorded  their  observations  of  the 
effects  of  the  planets  from  that  standpoint,  there  is  very 
little  of  such  empirical  knowledge  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  heliocentric  system,  which  we  would  advise  the  inquirer 
to  leave  alone. 


o20  KOSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  161. 

How  is  it  possible  to  get  on  good  terms  with  Saturn? 
The  inquirer  has  been  under  his  influence  all  his  life.  Sick- 
ness, poverty,  loss  of  inheritance  and  accidents  are  bad 
enough,  but  can  Saturn  also  cause  us  trouble  spiritually; 
can  he  put  barriers  up  for  our  unfoldment  when  our  spirit 
is  struggling  for  the  good,  and  are  we  liberated,  from  his 
influence  ivhen  we  pass  out  at  death  ? 


Answer:  Materialistic  astrologists  speak  of  Uranus, 
Saturn  and  Mars  as  evil,  while  Venus  and  Jupiter  are 
called  good.  In  God's  kingdom  there  is  nothing  evil.  That 
which  appears  so  is  only  good  in  the  making.  Neither 
must  it  be  imagined  that  the  influences  from  any  of  the 
planets  operate  to  harrass  men.  We  have  come  into  this 
world  in  order  to  get  certain  experiences  necessary  to  our 
spiritual  unfoldment,  and  when  we  seek  to  understand 
the  stellar  influences  we  shall  find  that  they  are  potent 
factors  in  helping  us  to  gain  just  that  experience.  Saturn 
is  the  chastener.  When  we  have  gone  astray  from  the  path 
of  righteousness,  wilfully  or  unwittingly,  we  are  not  allowed 
to  continue  in  evil,  for  Saturn  comes  to  stop  us.  Perhaps 
we  have  gained  an  inheritance;  we  misuse  and  squander  it 
in  every  direction.  In  doing  so,  we  usually  abuse  our 
body  as  well.  Then  comes  an  aspect  to  Saturn,  a  sickness 
ensues  and  we  are  laid  low.  We  are  forced  to  diet  and  to 
give  our  system  a  rest,  and  as  a  result  we  arise  from  our 
sick-bed  a  new  man  or  a  new  woman.  But  the  question  is, 
have  we  learned  our  lesson  ?  During  our  repose  upon  the 
sick-bed,  we  have  had  time  to  think  over  the  life  we  have 
been  leading.  Have  we  analyzed  our  life,  so  that  we  under- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  321 

stand  the  causes  that  brought  us  low?  If  so,  we  have 
profited.  For  then  we  shall  know  how  to  do  better  and 
avoid  the  pitfalls  that  caused  our  sickness  in  the  future. 
Or,  our  inheritance  being  altogether  squandered,  we  stand 
with  empty  pockets  upon  the  street.  Perhaps  we  can  turn 
nowhere  for  help ;  we  are  then  forced  to  think  and  to  break 
a  way  for  ourselves.  Our  talents  wrere  useless  while  we  were 
squandering  our  money.  In  poverty  they  are  turned  to 
account,  we  are  forced  to  use  them  in  doing  our  share  of 
the  world's  work.  We  have  lost  our  inheritance,  but  the 
world  has  gained  a  worker,  and  if  we  have  learned  our 
lesson  in  that  way,  then  the  influence  of  Saturn  has  been 
a  blessing  in  disguise. 

And  so  it  is  with  everything  in  the  horoscope  that  may 
appear  evil.  Besides,  the  more  spiritual  we  grow  the  less 
will  these  so-called  evil  planets  or  evil  aspects  affect  us 
adversely.  They  are  transmuted  to  good.  Saturn  will 
not  give  disaster  to  the  spiritual  man,  but  persistence;  not 
sickness,  but  strength ;  and  thus,  by  conforming  to  the  laws 
of  nature,  l)y  living  our  lives  in  harmony  with  the  stars, 
we  rule  them  and  change  our  lives  as  we  desire. 

The  greater  part  of  humanity  drifts  with  the  tide  and 
acts  according  to  the  tendencies  implanted  by  the  stellar 
influences.  Therefore,  the  astrologer  can  predict  what 
they  will  do  with  wonderful  accuracy.  But  the  more  a 
man  or  woman  lives  the  spiritual  life  the  more  he  becomes 
a  factor  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  and  the  predic- 
tions of  the  astrologer  will  fail  as  far  as  he  is  concerned 
in  a  measure  corresponding  to  his  attainment. 

The  stars  are  our  helpers  in  evolution.  They  are  not 
dead  bodies  of  matter  but  the  living,  throbbing  and 
vibrating  bodies  of  great  spiritual  intelligences  called  in 
the  Christian  religion  the  Seven  Spirits  before  the  throne. 


322  KOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

As  we  change,  their  influence  upon  us  changes,  but  we  do 
not  escape  from  that  influence  by  the  mere  incident  of 
death.  When  the  morning  of  a  new  life  dawns  for  us,  we 
shall  arise  with  a  new  horoscope,  and  if  we  have  aimed  to 
grow  spiritually,  to  learn  the  lessons  that  the  Star  Angels 
have  aimed  to  teach  us  in  the  past  life,  we  shall  have  new 
aspects  and  new  positions  of  the  planets  to  help  us  further 
along  the  path  of  evolution.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  have 
"kicked  against  the  pricks"  in  a  previous  life,  we  shall  find 
that  the  screws  will  have  been  put  on  a  little  harder,  that 
we  will  have  been  placed  under  influences  a  little  stronger, 
so  that  in  the  end  we  must  learn  the  lessons.  And  the 
quicker  we  do  so,  the  better  for  us. 


QUESTION  Xo.  162. 

How  may  we  pray  to  or  address  Saturn  when  he  is  the 
ruling  star  causing  us  trouble  and  sorrow? 


Answer:  To  understand  what  prayer  is,  let  us  use  the 
illustration  of  an  electric  power  house  with  wires  to  the 
different  houses  in  the  city.  In  each  house  there  is  a  switch 
and  when  we  turn  that,  the  power  which  was  hitherto  out- 
side in  the  wires  and  in  the  power  house,  enters  our  dwell- 
ing, illuminates  it  or  runs  motors,  according  to  the  laws 
of  its  manifestation.  We  may  say  that  God  primarilv  and 
the  Seven  Planetary  Spirits  secondarily  correspond  to  the 
power  house  which  is  wired  to  everyone  of  us,  and  prayer 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  323 

may  be  said  to  be  the  switch  whereby  we  put  ourselves  in 
touch  with  the  divine  light  and  life,  allowing  it  to  flow 
into  us  and  illuminate  us  for  our  spiritual  uplifting. 

It  is  a  law  that  electricity  will  flow  readily  along  copper 
or  other  metals,  but  is  barred  by  glass,  and  before  we  can 
get  the  electricity  into  our  houses  we  must  have  a  switch 
made  in  conformity  with  this  law,  a  copper  switch.  If  we 
used  a  glass  switch  we  would  obtain  no  electricity;  the 
glass  switch  would  be  a  most  effective  wray  of  altogether 
barring  the  electric  fluid  from  our  dwelling.  In  similar 
manner,  if  our  prayers  (which  correspond  to  the  switch) 
are  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  God,  the  divine  purpose 
can  manifest  through  us  and  our  prayers  are  answered, 
but  if  we  pray  contrary  to  the  will  of  God,  naturally, 
such  a  prayer  would  operate  in  a  similar  manner  to  a  glass 
switch  in  an  electric  circuit. 

As  a  great  nation  sends  its  ambassador  and  plenipoten- 
tiaries to  other  nations,  so  there  are  also  ambassadors  from 
each  one  of  the  great  Star  Angels  present  upon  our  earth. 
Their  names  are  as  follows : 

Ithuriel  is  the  ambassador  from  Uranus. 

Cassiel  is  the  ambassador  from  Saturn. 

Zachariel  is  the  ambassador  from  Jupiter. 

Samael  is  the  ambassador  from  Mars. 

Anael  is  the  ambassador  from  Venus. 

Eaphael  is  the  ambassador  from  Mercury. 

Michael  is  the  ambassador  from  the  Sun. 

Gabriel  is  the  ambassador  from  the  Moon. 

The  moon  is  our  satellite  and  is  not  in  the  same  position 
as  those  of  the  other  planets.  The  ambassadors  from  those 
planets  are  Archangels,  while  Gabriel  is  an  Angel. 

Ordinarily  humanity  prays  to  God.    These  prayers  are  at 


324:  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  present  time  mostly  selfish  and  ignorant.  The  prayers 
of  such  people  cannot  receive  attention  from  the  ambassa- 
dors who  have  charge  over  the  different  departments  of  life, 
but  are  generally  attended  to,  as  far  as  may  be,  by  the  In- 
visible Helpers  who  work  for  the  upliftment  of  their 
brethren.  The  occult  astrologer,  however,  who  knows  what 
he  wants  and  is  able  to  work  in  harmony  with  the  stellar 
forces,  addresses  the  ambassadors  of  the  Star  Angels  directly 
and  obtains  his  desire  more  easily  in  that  way.  He  studies 
the  planetary  hours  when  those  stars  have  rule  and  at  that 
time  proffers  his  request  which  is  usually  for  someone  else, 
or  for  spiritual  illumination  concerning  certain  matters 
to  be  used  for  the  common  good. 


SECTION  VIII 

Questions  concerning 

ANIMALS 


QUESTION  Xo.  163. 

Why  do  animals,  which  are  a  lower  evolution,  have  an  in- 
stinct which  seems  so  much  more  reliable  than  the  reason 
of  human  beings? 


Answer:  The  answer  to  that  question  has  to  do  with 
the  descent  of  the  Ego  into  matter,  but  in  the  first  place, 
we  must  differentiate  between  the  separate  animal  spirits 
and  the  group  spirit,  which  is  their  guardian.  The  sep- 
arate animal  spirits  are  as  yet  not  se //-conscious,  hence  they 
act  without  question  according  to  the  suggestions  of  the 
group  spirit.  The  latter  is  an  entity  belonging  to  a  dif- 
ferent evolution,  and  it  functions  in  the  Invisible  Worlds 
where  things  are  much  more  apparent  than  they  are  here. 
It  follows,  therefore,  that  what  we  call  instinct  is  really 
the  suggestions  of  the  group  spirit  in  the  Invisible  World 
which  guides  the  animals. 

The  human  spirits,  on  the  other  hand,  have  descended 
directly  into  the  Physical  World  and  are,  consequently, 
blinded  to  a  certain  extent  by  the  denser  matter  of  this 
plane  of  existence.  An  illustration  may  perhaps  serve  to 
elucidate  the  reason  of  the  fact  that  although  the  spirit  is 
exceedingly  wise  in  the  higher  worlds,  the  increased  mate- 
riality which  it  attains  on  account  of  its  descent  necessarily 
obscures  that  wisdom. 

The  hand  is  the  most  valuable  instrument  of  man  and 
327 


328  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

its  dexterity  is  perhaps  nowhere  more  apparent  than  in  the 
case  of  a  musician.  A  master  musician  may  produce  from 
his  beloved  instrument  the  most  soul  stirring  melody  by 
the  caressing  touch  of  his  well  trained  and  sensitive  fingers, 
but  let  him  put  on  a  pair  of  gloves  and  at  once  the  delicate 
touch  has  vanished;  if  he  adds  a  second  pair  of  gloves  over 
'the  first  pair  and  these  are  thicker  and  of  heavier  material, 
he  will  probably  be  unable  to  produce  even  a  melody,  and 
should  he  finally  put  a  pair  of  mitts  over  the  gloves,  he 
would  be  unable  to  play  at  all,  but  would  produce  discord 
should  he  make  the  attempt.  The  various  gloves  on  the 
hand  of  a  musician  find  their  counterpart  in  the  different 
vehicles  which  the  spirit  puts  on  in  its  descent  into  matter. 
The  mitt  corresponds  to  the  physical  body. 

Anyone  seeing  the  musician  attempt  to  play  with  the 
mitt  on  his  hand,  and  who  had  not  heard  him  play  before 
he  put  on  gloves,  might  suppose  him  incapable  of  playing, 
but  the  inference  would  be  wrong.  The  human  Ego  is 
in  a  similar  position,  its  spiritual  powers  have  been  ob- 
scured by  the  vehicles  in  which  it  is  at  present  incased,  but 
there  will  come  a  time  when  it  has  learned  how  to  use 
these  vehicles  properly  and  then  its  spiritual  power  will 
shine  forth  in  a  splendor  at  present  unimaginable. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  329 

QUESTION  Xo.  164. 

Can  you  throw  some  light  on  what  our  attitude  toward 
the  lower  forms  of  life  should  be? 

Have  we  the  right  to  kill  anything  harmless,  since  every 
living  tiling  is  in  a  sense  our  brother? 

How  about  the  venomous  insects  and  reptiles? 


Answer:  There  is  only  One  Life  in  the  Universe,  which 
is  God's  life.  "In  Him  we  live,  and  move  and  have  our 
being."  And  not  only  we,  but  all  that  lives  is  thus  a  mani- 
festation of  God.  We  are  in  time  to  become  creators,  as 
He  is  a  Creator.  But  so  long  as  we  brutally  destroy  the 
forms  of  other  beings  we  are  hindering  ourselves.  The  in- 
quirer is  right  when  he  says  that  the  lower  animals  are 
our  brothers,  but,  sad  to  say,  instead  of  caring  for  them 
and  inspiring  them  with  confidence  and  love,  we  have  man- 
aged to  make  ourselves  feared  by  every  animal  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth  by  the  ruthless  destruction  we  have  spread 
among  them,  and  it  seems  but  a  just*  retribution  that  we, 
ourselves,  should  be  in -constant  fear  of  microscopic  life  in 
the  form  of  bacilli,  which  cannot  be  killed  by  gun  or  knife. 

As  for  the  destructive  insects  and  reptiles,  they  may  in 
many  cases  be  said  to  be  an  embodiment  of  our  own  evil 
thoughts  and  produced  by  our  own  unclean  habits.  Science 
has  shown  us  how  by  proper  sanitation  we  may  get  rid  of 
them,  at  least  in  a  very  great  measure,  without  the  neces- 
sity of  killing  them.  The  larger  reptiles,  such  as  snakes, 
are  not  as  dangerous  as  they  are  often  thought  to  be.  In 
the  temples  in  India,  where  certain  classes  of  people  have 
cultivated  an  attitude  of  absolute  harmlessness  by  refusing 
to  kill  even  the  smallest  thing,  one  ma}r  see  as  a  daily 


;j3()  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

occurrence  venomous  snakes  crawling  among  the  people 
congregated  there,  never  doing  them  the  slightest  harm, 
and  if  we  would  cultivate  a  harmless  attitude  toward  the 
lower  creatures  they  would  soon  learn  to  trust  us  as  they 
now  fear  us.  Stories  are  on  record  of  sailors  who  have 
come  to  desert  islands  where  man's  foot  had  never  before 
trodden,  and  have  found  the  birds  there  perfectly  devoid  of 
fear  until  a  number  had  been  killed  by  the  invading  ruf- 
fians. Then  they  have  learned  to  fly  away  at  the  approach 
of  man. 

We  have  also  made  human  beings  into  beasts  of  prey — 
thieves  and  robbers  we  call  them — who  waylay  their  fellow- 
men,  deprive  them  of  their  goods  and  often  harm  them  bod- 
ily, even  to  committing  murder,  and  all  as  a  result  of  our 
harsh  treatment  which  is  dictated  by  fear.  If  we  had 
love  we  would  have  no  fear,  "for  perfect  love  casteth  out  all 
fear";  and  if  we  had  no  fear,  nothing  could  harm  us,  for 
the  fearless  and  trusting  attitude  is  a  safer  protection  than 
pistol  and  lock.  Therefore,  we  should  cultivate  that  atti- 
tude of  love  for  everything  that  lives  and  breathes;  we 
should  cease  killing  the  lower  animals  by  the  million  for 
food,  and  for  sport,  which  is  the  worst  form  of  cruelty.  An 
attitude  cf  love  toward  our  fellow  men  would  generate  in 
them  similar  emotions  and  locksmiths  and  gunmakers  would 
very  soon  be  useless.  We  complain  of  the  enormous  taxes 
necessary  to  support  a  strong  police  force,  the  machinery 
of  the  courts,  great  jails  and  penitentiaries,  but  all  of  these 
institutions  would  disappear  as  if  by  magic  if  we  would 
replace  fear  l>y  love.  The  Bible  pictures  to  us  a  time  when 
the  lion  and  the  ox,  the  little  child  and  the  venomous  rep- 
tile shall  all  play  together  in  peace.  That  may  indeed  be- 
come a  fact,  for  the  beasts  of  prey  have  not  always  been 
carnivorous.  In  the  far,  far  past  man  has  had  his  share 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  331 

in  their  development,  and  in  the  future  it  will  be  his  task 
to  change  these  conditions. 


QUESTION  Xo.  1G5. 

Are  not  venomous  and  destructive  reptiles  created  ly  the 
evil  thoughts  of  men,  so  far  as  the  form  is  concerned?  And, 
therefore,  is  it  not  an  act  of  love  to  kill  them  and  thus 
liberate  the  divine  spark  within  so  that  it  may  occupy  a 
higher  form? 


Answer:  None  of  the  animal  forms  which  we  see  about 
us  have  been  created  by  man.  All  these  forms,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  are  the  emanations  of  group  spirits, 
which  are  spiritual  entities  belonging  to  another  evolution 
than  the  human  kingdom,  But  man  is  a  creator  by  means 
of  his  thoughts,  and  the  evil  thoughts,  the  thoughts  of 
fear  and  hatred,  do  take  form  and  in  the  course  of  cen- 
turies they  crystallize  into  what  we  know  as  bacilli.  The 
bacilli  of  infectious  diseases  are  particularly  the  embodi- 
ments of  fear  and  hate,  and  therefore  they  are  also  van- 
quished by  the  opposite  force,  courage.  As  a  tuning  fork 
will  commence  to  vibrate  when  we  strike  another  tuning 
fork  of  the  same  pitch,  so  also  will  these  microscopic  germs. 
If  we  enter  the  presence  of  a  person  infected  with  a  ccn- 


332  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

tagious  disease  in  fear  and  trembling,  we  most  assuredly 
draw  to  ourselves  the  death  dealing  poisonous  microbes. 
If  on  the  other  hand,  we  approach  that  person  in  a  perfectly 
fearless  attitude,  we  shall  escape  the  infection,  particularly 
if  we  are  prompted  by  love.  But  love  does  not  prompt 
us  to  kill  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  true  that  if 
we  could  deal  directly  with  the  life  of  evil  and  poisonous 
things  and  help  them  into  a  higher  form,  we  might  be  do- 
ing good;  but  in  the  first  place  we  are  not  capable  of  judg- 
ing when  that  present  form  has  outlived  its  usefulness, 
and,  therefore,  we  cannot  presume  to  take  the  responsibility 
of  depriving  the  informing  life  of  its  instrument  in  loving 
kindness.  The  only  time  when  we  may  sometimes  prop- 
erly kill  for  love  is  in  case  an  animal  has  been  maimed 
beyond  chance  of  recovery,  and  we  kill  it  to  end  its 
sufferings. 


QUESTION  No.  166. 

What  is  a  group  spirit,  where  is  it,  and  what  does  it  look 
like?     • 


Answer:  As  a  man  has  a  body  composed  cf  many  cells, 
each  with  an  individual  consciousness,  so  is  a  group  spirit 
an  entity  functioning  in  the  Spiritual  Worlds  and  possess- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  33- 

ing  a  spiritual  body  composed  of  many  separate  animal 
spirits.  The  group  spirit  itself  cannot  function  in  the 
Physical  World,  but  it  evolves  by  sending  the  different 
animal  spirits  into  a  form  of  body  which  it  creates,  and 
which  then  forms  a  species  or  tribe  of  animals,  and  the 
group  spirit  guides  all  these  animal  bodies  by  means  of 
suggestions  which  we  call  instinct.  When  the  body  of  an 
animal  dies,  the  animal  spirit  has  unconsciously  derived  a 
certain  experience  from  functioning  in  that  vehicle,  and 
after  a  time  it  is  reabsorbed  into  the  spiritual  bod}r  of  the 
group  spirit,  where  it  remains  for  some  time  while  the  group 
spirit  assimilates  the  experience  gathered  by  that  separate 
animal  spirit.  Thus  in  time  the  group  spirit  grows  and 
evolves.  So  do  the  animal  spirits  which  are  its  wards. 
They  will  become  human  in  a  future  incarnation  of  the 
earth,  and  then  the  group  spirit  will  look  after  them  as 
race  or  a  national  spirit  until  they  have  become  perfectly 
capable  of  taking  care  of  themselves  individually.  The 
group  spirits  of  the  animals  are  in  the  Desire  World  and 
circle  the  surface  of  the  earth.  The  group  spirits  of  the 
plants  are  in  that  part  of  the  Begion  of  Concrete  Thought 
which  occupies  the  center  of  the  earth,  and  the  group 
spirits  of  the  minerals  have  not  yet  properly  entered  the 
atmosphere  of  our  earth.  They  are  in  the  Region  of  Ab- 
stract Thought. 

The  group  spirits  of  the  animals  are  very  often  seen  in 
the  Desire  World  having  human  bodies  and  animal  heads. 
The  illustrations  upon  the  Egyptian  temples  represent  in 
a  crude  way  the  appearance  of  these  group  spirits.  The 
trained  investigator  finds  no  difficulty  in  conversing  with 
them  and  often  he  has  cause  to  marvel  at  their  erudition. 


334  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  167. 
Are  animals  amenable  to  tlie  law  of  causation?. 


Answer:  No,  not  in  the  sense  of  being  'morally  respon- 
sible. Of  course,  if  an  animal  jumps  out  a  window  from 
a  high  building,  that  as  a  cause  will  produce  lesions  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  of  the  fall  it  sustains,  just  as  when  a 
human  being  jumps  out  of  the  window.  But  in  the  case 
of  the  animal  there  is  only  the  physical  effect  shown  by  the 
hurt  it  suffers,  while  the  man  who  deliberately  commits 
such  an  act  not  only  sustains  certain  lesions,  but  he  is  also 
morally  responsible  for  the  instrument  which  he  possesses, 
and  the  law  of  causation  brings  to  him  an  adequate  moral 
retribution  of  such  a  nature  that  he  will  learn  to  take  care 
of  his  instrument  and  not  seek  to  destroy  it  by  such  acts 
in  the  future. 

The  reason  why  the  animal  has  no  moral  responsibility 
is  that  it  has  no  reasoning  power,  but  ordinarily  acts  by 
direction  of  the  group  spirit  which  we  call  instinct,  and  it 
may  be  that  instinct  has  instilled  a  fear  into  the  animal 
which  causes  it  to  commit  an  act  resulting  in  injury  to 
its  body.  Before  anyone  can  be  morally  responsible  to  the 
law  of  causation,  he  must  have  a  certain  free  will  and  choice, 
also  the  power  of  reasoning  properly,  and,  therefore,  we 
reiterate  that  as  animals  are  devoid  of  these  attributes, 
they  are  not  at  all  amenable  morally  to  the  law  of  causation. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  335 

QUESTION  No.  168. 
Do  animals  live  after  death? 


Answer:  That  which  lives  is  the  spirit,  which  has  neither 
beginning  nor  end,  IT  is.  But  what  you  mean  is,  most  likely, 
does  it  persist  in  the  shape  of  an  animal?  To  that  ques- 
tion we  may  say  yes,  it  persists  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter 
time,  according  to  the  stage  of  its  evolution,  in  a  desire 
body  made  of  the  material  of  the  Desire  World.  Even  the 
beetle  that  crawls  over  the  sidewalk  and  i?  stepped  upon 
may  be  seen  by  the  clairvoyant  to  walk  a  few  feet  away 
and  then  gradually  fade  to  nothingness.  It  persists  only 
for  a  few  moments  in  its  shape  before  the  spirit  returns 
to  the  central  source  of  the  group  spirit.  In  the  case  of 
a  horse,  a  cow,  or  any  of  the  higher  animals,  there  is  a 
correspondingly  longer  time  and  more  consciousness  in  the 
Desire  World  than  in  the  case  of  these  lower  forms.  As 
an  illustration  we  may  mention  a  case  which  attracted  con- 
siderable attention  a  few  years  ago  when  Eider  Haggard, 
the  English  novelist,  published  a  remarkable  dream.  He 
had  a  dog  to  whom  he  was  very  much  attached,  and  one 
night  he  dreamed  that  the  dog  came  to  him  showing  signs 
of  embarrassment  and  distress,  beckoning  him  to  come 
along.  Eider  Haggard  in  his  dream  followed  the  dog 
which  led  the  way  some  distance  to  a  brook.  There  among 
some  bulrushes,  it  showed  Eider  Haggard  itself  lying  dead, 
looking  up  at  him  in  mute  and  piteous  appeal  for  an 
explanation. 

When  Eider  Haggard  woke  the  following  morning,  he 
remembered  the  dream  most  vividly,  but  took  no  notice  of 
it  until  later  in  the  day  when  it  was  discovered  that  the 


336  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

dog  was  missing.  After  a  search  had  been  made  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood,  Rider  Haggard  finally  betook  him- 
self to  the  spot  seen  in  his  dream.  There  he  found  among 
the  bulrushes  the  body  of  his  dog  in  the  very  position  he 
had  seen  it  in  his  dream.-  Explanations,  of  course,  could 
not  be  given;  it  was  a  puzzling  experience  and  that  was 
all.  But  to  the  occultist  it  is  very  plain  that  the  intelli- 
gent dog,  having  met  death  and  finding  itself  in  the  De- 
sire World  at  night,  goes  to  its  master,  who  was  at  that 
time  also  outside  his  body,  and  brings  him  to  the  place 
of  the  accident  in  order  to  obtain  his  help  and  explanation. 


QUESTION  No.  169. 

When  a  pet  dog  or  cat  dies,  does  the  entire  group  spirit 
to  which  it  belongs  die  at  the  same  time?  Also  what  be- 
comes of  the  animal  soul,  and  does  the  human  love  and 
care  it  has  received  help  it  on  its  upward  journey? 


Answer:  The  question  shows  that  the  inquirer  has  not 
the  proper  idea  of  what  a  group  spirit  is.  As  our  body  is 
composed  of  innumerable  cells,  each  cell  having  its  own 
little  cell  life,  but  all  the  cells  subjected  to  our  own  central 
intelligence,  so  the  group  spirit  of  a  species  of  animals  is  a 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  337 

spiritual  entity  belonging  to  a  different  evolution  and  hav- 
ing a  spiritual  body  composed  of  many  evolving  animal 
spirits.  These  animal  spirits  it  sends  into  incarnation  from 
time  to  time  into  the  animal  bodies  of  its  tribe,  one  spirit 
to  each  body,  and  at  death  they  return  to  the  group  spirit, 
having  gained  a  higher  grade  of  consciousness  than  when 
they  were  born.  This  helps  the  group  spirit  to  evolve, 
and  in  return  it  governs  the  spirits  of  the  separate  animals 
in  its  tribe.  Like  all  other  spirits,  a  group  spirit  cannot 
die.  It  is  the  guardian  of  the  animal  spirits,  and  as  they 
evolve  the  spiritual  body  of  the  group  spirit  undergoes 
a  metamorphosis.  When  the  separate  animal  spirits  have 
evolved  sufficiently,  they  become  individualized  human  be- 
ings, but  continue  in  charge  of  the  same  group  spirit,  as 
we  see  nations  or  races  under  the  domination  of  a  race 
spirit.  They  do  not  become  their  own  masters  until  they 
have  evolved  even  beyond  the  point  of  having  family  or 
national  ties.  That  was  why  Christ  said  that  "unless  a 
man  leave  father  and  mother  he  cannot  follow  me,"  for 
father  and  mother  are  bodies — they  are  ties  and  clogs. 
The  spirits  have  no  father  and  no  mother,  but  are  all  one 
in  the  ultimate. 

As  to  what  becomes  of  the  animal  soul  at  death,  we  may 
say  that  after  passing  out  of  this  body  it  soon  returns  to 
the  group  spirit,  and  the  love  and  care  which  we  have 
given  it  naturally  further  it  greatly  in  its  evolution,  for 
while  the  wild  animals  act  entirely  under  the  dictates  of 
the  group  spirit  by  that  which  we  cfill  instinct,  the  do- 
mestic animals  show  a  capability  of  thought,  entirely  be- 
yond their  normal  evolution  at  the  present  time.  They 
have  received  that  ability  from  us  on  the  same  principle 
that  when  we  take  a  wire  highly  charged  with  electricity 
and  place  another  wire  which  is  not  charged  close  to  it,  the 


338  EOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

uncharged  wire  will  become  charged  with  electricity  of  a 
lower  voltage.  In  a  similar  manner  the  animal  which  comes 
in  contact  with  human  beings  is  not  itself  capable  of  think- 
ing, but  learns  to  do  so  in  a  measure  by  this  contact.  And 
we  may  safely  infer  that  those  animals  which  have  become 
domesticated  will  in  time  become  the  teachers  of  their  less 
advanced  brothers. 


QUESTION  No.  170. 

What  substance  does  a  person  or  animal  throw  off  where- 
by they  can  be  traced,  as,  for  example,  criminals  are  traced 
by  bloodhounds? 


Answer:  When  a  clairvoyant  looks  at  other  persons  with 
etheric  sight  for  the  first  time,  he  is  usually  astonished  at 
beholding  showers  of  stars,  pyramids,  double  pyramids  and 
all  other  geometrical  forms  issuing  from  their  hands  and 
faces,  and  he  wonders  greatly  what  they  are.  Later  on, 
he  learns  that  they  are  the  crystals  of  which  his  body  is 
composed  and  which  are  thus  being  excreted  by  the  skin. 
Most  of  the  excretions  remain  in  the  clothing,  and  furnish 
bloodhounds  or  dogs  with  the  necessary  starting  point  for 
their  search.  As  these  atoms  decay,  they  emit  an  effluvia 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  339 

similar  to  that  of  all  decaying  bodies.  This  effluvia  we  sense 
ourselves  where  soiled  clothing  is  left  unlaundered  for  some 
time.  The  dogs,  having  a  keener  scent  than  human  beings,, 
distinguish  between  the  effluvia  from  one  person  and  an- 
other, and  as  the  atoms  left  by  a  person  fleeing  from  jus- 
tice are  strewn  along  the  path  he  has  taken,  it  is  easy  for 
the  bloodhound  to  distinguish  these  from  the  atoms  of 
other  people  or  animals  for  a  short  time  after  the  fugitive 
has  passed. 


SECTION  IX 
MISCELLANEOUS  QUESTIONS 


Physical    World 

World  of  Thought 

3s 

*l 

If 

If 

!! 

Iff 

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OTHSTTOX  No.  171. 
What  is  the  origin  of  life? 


Answer:  When  that  question  is  asked  a  scientist,  he 
will  commence  to  tell  us  about  protoplasm,  protyle  or  some- 
thing else  of  a  like  nature,  but  that  is  fen*1}.  No  matter 
how  small,  insignificant  and  simple  that  form  may  be,  it 
is  still  a  form,  and  from  the  occultist's  point  of  view,  the 
question  is  poorly  put,  for  the  spirit  is,  WAS  and  WILL 
ALWAYS  BE.  As  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  says  in  his  beautiful 
poem,  "The  Song  Celestial" : 

"Never  the  spirit  was  born,  the  spirit  shall  cease  to 

never : 
Never  was   time   it   was   not  end   and   beginning   are 

dreams, 

Birthless  and  deathless  remaineth  the  spirit  forever; 
Death  has  not  touched  it  at  all  uead  though  the  house 
of  it  seems. 

"Nay.  hut  as  one  layeth  his  worn  out  robe  away, 
And  taking  another  sayeth,  "This  will  I  wear  today'; 
So  putteth  by  the  spirit  lightly  its  garment  of  flesh 
And  passeth  on  to  inherit  a  residence  afresh." 

It  is  life  that  builds  the  forms  and  uses  them  for  a  time 
in  orrlcT  that  it  may  progress  thereby.  When  their  useful- 


EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 


ness  has  ceased  the  life  passes  on,  leaving  the  forms  behind, 
and  then  they  are  dead.  Thus  the  question  should  rather 
be  "How  did  the  dead  originate?"  for  life  is  —  it  has  neither 
origin  nor  termination. 


QUESTION  Xo.  172. 
What  is  matter?    Is  it  not  unreal? 


Ansiver:  There  are  various  theories  of  matter.  If  we  ask 
the  materialist  he,  of  course,  maintains  that  matter  is  the 
one  reality ;  that  all  and  everything  is  matter  and  that  noth- 
ing can  exist  except  that.  The  Christian  Scientist  is  of  the 
very  opposite  opinion.  He  holds  that  matter  is  nonexistent 
— a  delusion;  that  everything  that  is,  is  spirit,  and  so  those 
two  classes  of  people  are  the  very  antitheses  of  one  another. 
But  the  truth  is  between. 

When  God  desires  to  manifest,  He  emanates  within  Him- 
self the  thought  forms  of  such  a  universe  as  He  desires  to 
create,  and  these  archetypal  ideas  arc  spirit  when  first  ema- 
nated in  that  central  source.  But  under  the  influence  of 
time  and  space,  they  slowly  crystallize  and  become  that 
which  we  know  as  matter.  This  is  a  similar  process  to  that 
which  we  may  observe  in  the  case  of  a  snail.  The  juices 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  345 

of  its  soft  and  flexible  body  gradually  crystallize  into  the 
hard  and  flinty  shell  which  is  incapable  of  moving  save 
as  propelled  by  the  snail.  Thus,  as  the  house  of  tne  snail 
is  crystallized  snail,  so  matter  is  crystallized  spirit.  And  as 
the  house  of  the  snail  remains  stationary  when  not  moved 
by  the  snail,  so  matter  is  immobile  save  when  moved 
by  the  spirit.  But  in  the  course  of  time  ihe  snail's  house 
goes  to  decay.  The  matter  of  which  it  was  formed  is  broketi* 
up  into  minute  particles  and  becomes  available  for  the 
building  of  other  flexible  forms — it  may  become  the  body 
of  a  snail  again.  So,  also,  the  crystalized  spirit — matter — 
is  reetherialized  and  becomes  spirit  again.  Matter  evolves 
as  well  as  spirit,  for  it  becomes  more  ethereal,  more  flex- 
ible, and  more  amenable  to  the  impacts  of  spirit  when  it  is 
built  into  different  forms  time  after  time. 

Thus  we  may  say  with  the  Christian  Scientist  that  all  is 
spirit,  that  which  appears  as  matter  being  in  reality  spirit 
in  a  state  of  crystallization,  and  we  may  also  agree  with 
the  materialist  that  all  is  matter,  for  spirit  which  has  not 
yet  crystallized  into  matter  will  eventually  do  so.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  consider  anything  in  God's  Universe  as  un- 
real ;  both  matter  and  spirit  are  real.  They  are  the  positive 
and  negative  poles  of  God. 


346  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  173. 

You  said  in  a  previous  lecture  that  the  earth  is  the  body 
of  a  spirit  which  gives  its  life  for  the  dwellers  upon  the 
surface.  Why  does  it  give  flowers  and  fruit  to  some  and 
earthquake  and  famine  to  others? 


Answer:  During  the  interval  between  death  and  a  new 
birth,  the  discarnate  spirits  who  have  reached  the  Second 
Heaven  where  the  archetypes  of  everything  are,  build  their 
future  environment  in  which  they  reap  what  they  have 
sown.  If  they  have  been  diligent  in  past  lives,  if  they  have 
tilled  the  soil  and  made  two  blades  of  grass  to  grow  where 
there  wap  only  one,  they  will  build  for  themselves  a  still 
more  fertile  land  which  will  yield  greater  fruits  for  less 
labor.  If  they  have  spent  their  time  thinking  of  Nirvana, 
a  heavenly  place  of  rest  and  indolence,  and  have  loved 
more  to  enter  into  metaphysical  discussion  than  to  look 
after  material  things,  they  will  continue  to  do  so  in  the 
Second  Heaven,  and  in  consequence  their  land  will  be  arid 
when  they  come  back  to  earth  life.  They  will  then  ex- 
perience famine,  flood  and  earthquake,  so  that  they  may 
realize  the  necessity  of  providing  for  material  conditions. 
Thus  they  will  in  time  learn  their  lesson  and  strive  to  con- 
quer this  world  as  we  have  done  in  the  West,  for,  of  course, 
the  inquirer  has  reference  to  the  people  of  the  East  who 
suffer  from  flood  and  famine.  They  are  our  younger 
brethren,  behind  us  in  evolution,  and  must  follow  in  our 
footsteps.  They  must  learn  to  forget,  for  a  time,  the 
spiritual  worlds  in  order  to  attain  the  development  which 
only  the  material  world  can  give  them.  Thus,  there  is  a 
ideep  purpose  in  the  famine  which  is  at  present  their  lot 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

and  there  is  a  purpose  as  deep  in  our  prosperity.  Their 
famine  will  eventually  drive  them  into  more  material  con- 
ditions, but  we,  having  a  land  of  plenty  with  all  the  good 
things  of  this  world,  where  ingenious  inventions  make 
life  easier  on  every  hand,  will  eventually  say  to  ourselves, 
when  we  have  been  satisfied  with  these  material  blessings, 
"What  is  the  good  of  it  all  ?  Give  us,  rather,  the  spiritual 
things/'  and  we  will  then  enter  a  spiritual  development 
much  higher  than  that  of  the  East. 


QUESTION  N"o.  174. 
What  is  meant  ~by  the  sentence  "Man,  know  thyself?" 


Answer:  This  sentence  was  found  aoove  the  entrance  to 
a  Greek  mystery  temple  as  an  indication  of  the  fact  that  it 
is  obligatory  upon  man  to  thoroughly  understand  the 
mystery  of  his  own  nature,  which  is  much  deeper  than  is 
apparent  on  the  surface.  This,  on  the  principle  of  the 
hermetic  axiom,  "as  above,  so  below."  When  he  under- 
stands himself  and  knows  himself,  he  will  be  able  .by 
analogy  to  know  about  God.  For  it  is  truly  said  that 
"Man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God." 

But  to  know  himself,  it  is  not  only  necessary 


348  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

should  "understand  that  which  he  sees,  the  physical  body, 
but  also  the  invisible  bodies  which  are  the  causes  of  his 
thoughts,  feelings  and  emotions.  This  was  the  teaching 
given  in  the  mystery  temples. 

There  is  still  another  and  a  far  deeper  meaning  to  that 
sentence.  When  we  ask  ourselves  the  causes  of  all  the 
sorrow  and  the  misery  in  the  world,  we  must  revert  to  the 
earliest  epochs  of  the  earth's  existence  to  solve  our  problem. 
In  the  two  first  Epochs,  the  Polarian  and  the  Hyper- 
borean, man  was  a  complete  creative  unit,  capable  of  send- 
ing forth  from  himself  the  forces  which  generated  a 
body  for  another  being.  But  in  the  Lemurian  Epoch, 
when  it  became  necessary  to  build  a  brain  and  a  larynx, 
the  sex  force  was  divided  and  one  half  retained  in  order 
to  accomplish  that  object.  Only  the  other  half  remained 
available  for  generation.  Then  man  ceased  to  know  him- 
self, but  "Adam  knew  his  wife,"  and  as  a  result  she  bore 
him  children. 

The  spirit  inherently  feels  its  own  divine  creative 
nature  and  secretly  rebels  against  the  necessity  of  seek- 
ing the  cooperation  of  another  to  generate.  As  a  result, 
sorrow,  trouble  and  pain  have  come  into  the  world,  and 
will  exist  so  long  as  the  present  method  of  procreation 
makes  it  necessary  for  two  to  cooperate  to  perpetuate  the 
species.  And  it  was  the  glorious  goal  that  is  set  before 
humanity  in  the  future — the  coalition  of  the  two  poles  of 
the  creative  force  which  will  again  make  man  an  individual 
creator  complete  in  himself — that  was  adumbrated  in  the 
mystery  word  "Man,  know  thyself." 

The  Apostle  John,  in  his  First  Epistle,  the  3rd  chapter, 
8th  verse,  tells  us  the  way  of  attainment  where  he  says  that 
"He  that  commiteth  sin  is  of  the  devil.  .  .  .  For  this  pur- 
pose was  the  Son  of  God  manifested,  that  he  might  destroy 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  349 

the  works  of  the  devil.  .  .  .  Whosever  is  born  of  God  does 
not  commit  sin,  for  his  seed  remaineth  in  him." 

Where  the  animal  propensities  are  catered  to  and  an 
abnormal  use  is  made  of  the  sex  force,  a  man  is  apt  to 
become  an  idiot,  but  the  thoughts  of  a  spiritual  man  are 
pure,  chaste  and  full  of  wisdom. 

At  the  present  time,  cooperation  of  the  sexes  is  neces- 
sary to  procreation  of  vehicles  for  Egos  who  are  coming 
to  rebirth,  but  the  time  will  come  when  man  will  cease 
to  create  in  that  manner.  He  will  know  himself.  Con- 
centrated thought  as  the  seed  will  remain  within  himself, 
but  he  will  manifest  it  by  means  of  the  larynx  as  a 
Creative  Word,  a  word  that  will  form  things  in  the  Phys- 
ical World.  Then  it  will  no  longer  be  necessary  for  man- 
kind to  seek  the  cooperation  of  one  another  in  providing 
new  vehicles.  This  he  was  taught  in  the  mystery  schools, 
which  are  way  stations  upon  the  path  of  attainment,  and 
therefore  the  saying  "Man,  know  thyself"  was  inscribed 
upon  the  Delphian  oracle. 


QUESTION  No.  175. 
What  is  the  Holy  Grail? 

Answer:  The  story  of  the  Holy  Grail  is  one  of  the 
myths  used  by  the  great  leaders  of  humanity  to  convey  to 
us  spiritual  truths  in  symbols  which  would  at  that  timo 
have  been  incomprehensible  to  our  infant  intellect. 


350  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

The  Grail  story  is  found,  variously  told,  in  all  the  earlier 
races  as  far  back  as  we  can  trace  religious  teaching,  and 
libraries  have  been  written  about  this  wonderful  mystic 
panacea  for  all  ills. 

In  medieval  times  many  versions  of  this  legend  were 
recited  by  minstrels,  minnesingers,  troubadours  or  master- 
singers.  Most  beautiful,  perhaps,  was  the  simple  version 
of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  which  was  taken  in  hand  by 
the  master  artist  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Eichard  Wag- 
ner, in  his  famous  music  drama  "Parsifal." 

The  story  relates  that  on  the  night  when  our  Savior  ate 
the  last  supper  with  His  disciples,  He  drank  from  a  cer- 
tain cup  or  chalice,  and  later  on,  when  the  lifeblood 
flowed  from  His  wounded  side,  Joseph  of  Arithmathea 
caught  the  life  blood  of  our  dying  Savior  in  yon  chalice. 
He  also  took  the  spear  wherewith  that  wound  had  been 
inflicted.  These  relics  he  carried  with  him  for  many 
years,  and  such  was  the  wonderful  life  giving  power  of  the 
Savior's  blood  that  it  sustained  him  throughout  all  his 
privations,  in  prison,  and  on  his  wanderings.  At  last,  the 
relics  were  taken  up  into  heaven  for  a  time  in  the  care  of 
Angels,  but  one  night  there  appeared  a  mystic  messenger 
sent  from  God  to  the  holy  Titurel  with  command  that  he 
build  a  castle  high  in  the  air,  upon  a  mountain  top,  and 
there  gather  around  himself  a  band  of  knights,  who  must 
he  chaste  and  pure.  These  Grail  Knights  were  permitted 
to  behold  the  sacred  relics  at  stated  times  and  thus  they 
became  inspired  with  desire  and  power  to  go  into  the 
world  to  do  mighty  spiritual  deeds.  In  time  Titurel  gave 
the  wardership  of  the  Grail  to  his  son  Amfortas  and  in 
his  reign  as  King  of  the  Grail,  a  sad  calamity  befell  the 
Grail  Knights. 

There  lived  in  ffa  heathen  vale"  below  the  castle  a  black 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  351 

knight  by  the  name  of  Klingsoi  who  desired  to  become  a 
Knight  of  the  Grail.  He  was  not  chaste,  so  in  order  to 
meet  the  condition  he  mutilated  himself  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  became  impossible  for  him  to  gratify  desire.  But 
when  he  applied  to  the  holy  Titurel,  the  latter  saw  his  heart 
and  refused  him  admittance.  Then  Klingsor  swore  that 
if  he  might  not  serve  the  Grail,  the  Grail  should  serve 
him.  He  peopled  the  garden  of  his  magic  castle  with  il- 
lusory phantasmic  flower  maidens  who  waylaid  the  Knights 
of  the  Grail  on  their  passage  to  and  from  the  castle,  se- 
duced them  and  thus  disqualified  them  for  further  service 
as  Grail  Knights. 

Fearing  that  all  the  Knights  of  the  Grail  would  be- 
come prisoners  of  Klingsor,  Amfortas  decided  to  fight  the 
black  magician.  He  took  with  him  the  holy  spear  to  ac- 
complish his  object.  But  Klingsor  evoked  Kundry,  who  is 
a  creature  of  two  existences.  At  one  time  she  is  the  faith- 
ful and  willing  servitor  of  the  Grail,  at  another  time  the 
unwilling  tool  of  Klingsor.  When  serving  the  Grail,  she 
is  humble,  obedient  and  simply  clad.  Under  the  spell  of 
Klingsor,  she  becomes  beautiful  in  the  extreme,  a  woman 
of  seducing  charms,  and  these  she  is  forced  to  use  as 
Klingsor  bids  her,  for  he  has  power  over  her  by  virtue  of 
the  fact  that  he  is  not  susceptible  to  her  charms  on  account 
of  his  act  of  mutilation. 

Kundry  meets  Amfortas,  who  falls  before  her  charms. 
While  1  ying  in  her  arms  the  spear  falls  from  his  hand  and 
is  snatched  by  the  waiting  Klingsor,  who  inflicts  a  wound 
that  cannot  heal,  and  for  many  years  the  King  suffers 
tortures,  particularly  when  he  unveils  the  Holy  Grail  for 
the  benefit  of  his  knights.  Then  the  spear  wound  com- 
mences to  bleed  anew,  causing  him  the  most  excruciating 
pain. 


352  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Roughly  speaking,  and  giving  one  of  the  several  valid 
interpretations  which  appertain  to  the  Grail  mystery,  as 
to  other  symbols,  Kundry  is  the  negative  dense  body  which 
at  one  time  is  under  the  control  of  the  higher  nature 
symbolized  by  the  Grail  Knights,  and  another  time  ruled 
by  the  lower  desire  nature  symbolized  by  Klingsor,  which 
tempts  the  spirit  to  forsake  its  higher  ideals,  and  causes 
suffering  when  temptation  is  yielded  to.  In  Parsifal,  the 
pure  and  guileless  one,  we  see  the  man  who  overcomes  and 
therefore  succeeds  to  the  wardership  of  the  Grail. 

On  Good  Friday  morning,  1857,  Eichard  Wagner  sat 
at  the  Villa  Wesendonck  by  the  Zurich  Sea,  and  as  he 
looked  about  him  the  sun  was  shining,  all  nature  was 
smiling  and  from  the  millions  of  seeds  buried  in  the 
ground  around  him,  innumerable  plants  and  flowers  were 
sprouting.  The  thought  struck  Wagner,  "What  is  the 
connection  between  the  death  of  the  Savior  at  this  time  of 
the  year  and  this  manifold  sprouting  life,"  and  in  that 
thought  he  came  very  near  to  the  key  to  the  mystery  of 
the  Grail,  for  the  Grail  was  a  Mystery  School,  one  of  many 
which  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  stories  of  King 
Arthur  and  his  Knights  of  the  Round  Table  are  not  fables, 
they  are  facts.  Therewas  such  a  Mystery  in  Wales  as  late 
as  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  And  these  Mystery 
Schools  exist  to  the  very  present  day,  though  not  as  pub- 
licly known  as  they  were  in  the  more  spiritual  mediaeval 
times.  The  Mystery  of  King  Arthur  dealt  more  with  the 
material  and  temporal  side  of  life  than  the  Mystery  of  the 
Grail,  which  was  altogether  pure  and  spiritual.  And  there 
the  pupil  was  taught,  not  in  words,  but  the  feeling  was 
given  to  him,  a  teaching  from  within,  which  we  may  ex- 
press as  follows: 

"You  see  all  around  you  the  various  kingdoms  in  the 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  353 

world.  There  is  man,  animal,  plant  and  mineral.  The 
life  which  is  in  each  of  these  kingdoms  is  the  one  universal 
life  of  God,  which  manifests  through  all  these  various 
forms.  When  the  forms  decay  it  becomes  necessary  to 
provide  other  forms  in  their  places,  hence  the  generative 
activity  which  serves  this  purpose.  In  the  plant  king- 
dom,, which  is  beneath  you,  that  activity  is  pure,  chaste 
and  immaculate.  There  is  no  passion  connected  with  it 
in  any  respect. 

In  the  kingdoms  of  the  Gods,  which  are  beyond  }mi,  it 
is  also  carried  on  as  a  process  of  regeneration  wilich  is 
pure  and  holy.  But  in  the  kingdoms  which  stand  between 
the  plant  and  the  gods,  conditions  are  the  reverse  of  chaste. 
Man  and  animal  are  passionate.  Man  is,  in  fact,  the 
inverted  plant.  The  plant  is  unashamed  and  stretches  its 
creative  organ,  the  flower,  towards  the  sun,  a  thing  of 
beauty  and  delight,  pure,  chaste  and  passionless.  Man 
turns  his  creative  organ  toward  the  earth ;  he  hides  it  with 
shame  because  it  is  filled  with  passion.  In  time  man  is  to 
become  a  god,  he  is  to  use  his  creative  ability  for  the  ben- 
efit of  others  and  not  for  sense  gratification.  And  so  in 
time  man  must  become  plant-like  on  a  higher  scale.  There- 
fore, you  see  this  symbol :  The  pod  of  the  plant  which 
holds  the  seed  is  the  grail  cup,  and  the  spear  which  brings 
that  seed  forth  from  the  flower  is  the  ray  of  the  sun. 
You,  also,  must  learn  to  take  the  solar  force,  which  is 
the  builder  of  all  forms,  and  use  it  in  your  creative  organ 
without  passion,  so  that  that  which  you  create  shall  be 
immaculately  conceived  and  not  as  now  begotten  in  sin. 

The  juice  of  the  plant  flows  through  its  green  stem  and 
leaves  uncolored,  pure  and  chaste.  Your  blood  is  red  and 
filled  with  passion,  but  in  the  regeneration  that  blood  must 
be  cleansed  by  the  spiritual  force  which  will  come  to  you 


354:  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

from  the  spiritual  sun,  as  the  forces  from  the  physical 
sun  bring  forth  the  juice  of  the  plant.  And  having  become 
thus  regenerated,  you  will  die  as  a  man  to  be  resurrected 
a  God. 


QUESTION  No.  176. 

What  was  the  connection  between  the  pyramid  builders 
of  Egypt  and  the  pyramid  builders  of  Central  America? 
Which  is  the  older  civilization? 


Answer:  Anthropological  researches  have  shown  that 
the  Negro  races  have  a  long,  narrow  head,  narrow  eye 
sockets  and  flat  hair.  The  Mongolian  races,  the  Indians, 
etc.,  have  round  heads,  round  eye  sockets  and  their  hair 
is  round.  The  head  of  the  white  races  is  oval,  so  are  the 
eye  sockets  and  the  hair,  showing  that  we  have  upon  earth 
three  kinds  of  people  and  these  are  the  remnants  of  the 
Lemurian  Races  which  lived  in  the  Third  Epoch  of  the 
earth's  development.  The  Mongolians,  Indians,  etc.,  are 
the  remnants  of  the  Atlantean  peoples  and  tlie  white  races 
are  the  present  Aryans.  Upon  examination,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  Egyptians  belonged  to  our  present  Aryan 
races,  while  the  Aztecs  show  the  peculiarities  of  skull,  orbit 
and  hair  distinctive  of  the  Atlantean  people.  Therefore 
that  civilization  is  older  than  the  Egyptian. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  355 

Not  much  has  been  written  concerning  the  pyramids 
of  Central  America,  but  Piazzi  Smith  and  Eichard  Proc- 
tor, both  professional  astronomers,  have  written  consid- 
erable concerning  the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  and  have  en- 
deavored to  find  out  what  their  use  was.  From  the  meas- 
urements of  the  pyramids,  Piazzi  Smith  deduces  the  theory 
that  they  were  built  by  divine  architects,  a  theory  which 
Professor  Proctor  ridicules,  although  he  finds  the  measure- 
ments support  the  theories  of  Professor  Smith,  but  he 
attributes  it  to  coincidence.  When  the  base  of  the  pyramid 
measures  as  many  hundreds  of  inches  as  there  are  days  in 
a  year;  when  the  diagonals  of  the  base  show  the  same  num- 
ber of  inches  as  there  are  years  in  the  great  sidereal  world 
year,  it  merely  happened  so,  in  the  estimation  of  Professor 
Proctor.  These  coincidences  are  so  numerous,  however, 
that  to  an  unbiased  mind  they  appear  to  be  an  embodiment 
of  a  definite  design.  Professor  Proctor,  being  an  unwill- 
ing witness  for  the  theory  that  the  Pyramid  was  designed 
for  astrological  purposes,  gives  augmented  value  to  his 
testimony  when  he  admits  that  of  all  the  theories  advanced 
concerning  the  use  of  the  pyramids,  the  theory  that  they 
were  built  for  astrological  purposes,  is  the  only  one  that 
can  withstand  the  weight  of  the  contrary  evidence.  There- 
fore, though  he  characterizes  it  as  a  wild  theory,  it  is  the 
only  tenable  one,  according  to  evidence. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  pyramids  were  temples  of  initia- 
tion, built  by  the  Hierophants  of  the  lesser  mysteries,  and 
as  initiation  of  candidates  is  founded  upon  the  passage  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  the  stars,  through  the  twelve  signs 
of  the  zodiac,  so  naturally,  these  temples  of  initiation 
embodied  all  the  cosmic  measurements.  Only  the  pyramid 
of  Cheops  among  the  Egyptian  group  was  thus  used.  The 
other?  were  simply  imitations  built  at  later  times  by  some 


356  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  Pharaohs.  The  lesser  mysteries  have  existed  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  world  and  at  various  times.  In  India, 
in  Egypt,  in  Greece,  and  also  in  Central  America.  There- 
fore, the  connection  between  the  pyramid  builders  of  one 
part  of  the  world  and  another  is  that  they  were  all  the 
Hierophants  of  the  lesser  mysteries  and  that  their  temples 
were  used  for  purposes  of  initiations. 


QUESTION  Xo.  177. 

What  is  the  essential  difference  between  the  teachings 
of  the  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  and  the  orthodox  church? 


Answer:  There  are  many,  but  perhaps  the  principal  one 
is  the  teaching  of  orthodoxy  that  at  each  birth  a  newly 
created  soul  enters  material  existence  fresh  from  the  hand 
of  God,  that  it  lives  here  in  a  material  body  for  a  longer 
or  shorter  span  of  time  and  then  passes  out  by  death  into 
the  invisible  beyond,  there  to  remain  for  all  eternity  in  a 
state  of  happiness  or  misery  according  to  what  it  did  while 
here  in  the  body. 

The  Eosicrucian  teaching  is  that  each  soul  is  an  integral 
part  of  God,  which  is  seeking  to  gain  experience  by  re- 
peated existences  in  gradually  improving  material  bodies 
and  that,  therefore,  it  passes  into  and  out  of  material  ex- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  357 

istences  many  times;  that  each  time  it  gathers  a  littb  more 
experience  than  it  previously  possessed  and  in  time  is  nour- 
ished from  nescience  to  omniscience — from  impotence  to 
omnipotence — by  means  of  these  experiences. 

Our  sense  of  justice  revolts  against  a  teaching  which 
sends  one  soul  into  a  home  of  culture  and  a  noble  family 
where  it  has  the  advantage  of  wealth,  where  moral  teach- 
ings are  implanted  in  the  growing  child,  but  sends  another 
into  the  slums,  its  father  a  thief  and  the  mother,  psrhaps, 
immoral,  and  where  its  teachings  consist  in  lying,  stealing, 
etc.  If  here  only  once,  all  should  have  the  same  chance 
if  they  are  to  be  judged  by  the  same  laws,  and  we  know 
that  no  two  people  have  the  same  experiencss  in  life.  We 
know  that  where  one  meets  many  temptations,  another 
lives  comparatively  untouched  by  the  storms  of  life. 
Therefore,  when  one  soul  is  placed  in  a  moral  environ- 
ment and  another  in  immoral  surroundings,  it  is  not  right 
to  send  the  one  to  a  heaven  of  enjoyment  and  eternal  bliss 
for  doing  the  right  he  could  not  help  doing,  nor  is  it  just  to 
send  the  other  to  a  hell  for  stealing  and  robbing  when  the 
environment  and  the  conditions  into  which  he  was  thrown 
were  such  that  he  could  not  help  himself. 

Therefore,  the  Rosicrucian  teaching  holds  that  we  come 
into  whatever  place  is  best  fitted  for  us  by  our  previous 
experiences  in  former  lives,  and  that  we  get  just  what  we 
deserve  in  all  cases;  that  all  experiences  which  come  to 
us  are  just  what  we  need  to  give  us  the  appropriate  im- 
petus for  our  next  step  in  unfoldment. 


358  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  178. 

Kindly  state  the  essentials  wherein  the  Rosicrucian  Phi' 
lowphy  differs  from  Theosophy. 


Answer:  We  are  not  as  much  concerned  in  seeking  out 
differences  as  in  finding  agreements.  It  may  be  said,  how- 
ever, that  the  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  is  the  Western  teach- 
ing given  to  the  Western  people  at  this  time  for  their  ad- 
vancement. If  we  take  Theosophy  as  meaning  Thco  Sophia 
(Divine  Wisdom),  then,  of  course,  the  •  Rosicrucian  Phi- 
losophy is  only  a  part  of  that  Divine  Wisdom,  like  all 
other  religious  systems.  But  if  we  take  theosophy  to  mean 
the  philosophy  promulgated  by  the  Theosophical  Society, 
or  Societies,  for  there  are  several  brands,  then  we  may  say 
that  the  Rosicrucian  teaching  is  much  more  compre- 
hensive and  complete.  Besides,  in  teaching  their  philos- 
ophy the  Rosicrucians  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
method  of  the  Theosophical  Society,  which  has  for  its 
objects : 

First,  The  formation  of  a  nucleus  of  the  Universal 
Brotherhood, 

Second,  The  study  of  comparative  religion,  and 

Third,  The  investigation  of  the  unexplained  laws  in 
nature  and  the  powers  latent  in  man. 

The  Brothers  of  the  Rosy  Cross  contend  that  the  ma- 
jority of  advanced  p?ople  are  in  sympathy  with  the  idea 
of  Universal  Brotherhood,  and  that  we  need  not  be  theoso- 
phists  to  Iiave  that  idea  at  heart.  Countless  other  societies 
have  altruistic  ideas  along  the  lines  of  brotherhood.  Many 
scientists  are  studying  comparative  religion  and  doing  it 
exceedingly  well.  It  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  theosophist 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  359 

in  order  to  follow  that  object,  but  it  is  necessary  to  be  an 
occultist  in  order  to  follow  out  the  third  object  of  the 
Theosophical  Society,  namely,  the  study  of  the  unex- 
plained laws  of  nature  and  the  powers  latent  in  man. 

Therefore,  the  Rosicmeians  recommend  that  all  thoughts 
be  centered  upon  living  such  a  life  and  practicing  such 
exercises  as  will  develop  the  latent  powers  in  each  pupil 
so  that  he  may  see  and  know  the  invisible  worlds  whence 
come  the  causes  we  see  manifested  here.  When  this  object 
is  attained,  and  not  till  then,  is  he  capable  of  investigating 
the  unexplainel  laws  of  nature.  He  is  then  also  in  a  much 
better  position  than  the  scientists  or  anyone  else  to  study 
comparative  religion,  for  he  sees  the  central  source  from 
whence  all  religions  sprang,  each  being  adapted  to  the  peo- 
ple to  whom  given.  He  also  sees  how  they  fit  into  the 
grand  scheme  of  evolution,  and  when  he  has  become  capable 
of  reaching  the  consciousness  of  the  inner  worlds  the  unity 
of  life  is  so  apparent  that  he  does  not  need  to  trouble  him- 
self about  the  first  object  of  the  Theosophical  Society,  the 
universality  of  the  One  Life  which  makes  brotherhood  a 
fact  in  nature,  beyond  necessity  of  statement. 

To  reach  that  last  step,  we  must  have  the  true  view  of 
the  matter.  We  may  preach  to  a  stove  that  its  duty  is  to 
heat  and  warm  us,  but  unless  we  comply  with  the  laws  of 
its  nature  and  put  fuel  into  it,  our  preaching  will  be  of 
no  avail.  On  similar  principle,  unless  we  reach  the  step 
of  exaltation  where  our  hearts  are  filled  with  the  divine 
love,  we  may  preach  and  put  forth  teachings  concerning 
Universal  Brotherhood,  but  it  will  do  no  good.  If  we 
fill  the  stove  with  fuel,  it  will  heat  us,  and  if  we  fill  our 
hearts  with  love  they  will  radiate  that  quality  without  state- 
ment of  objects  such  as  the  first  one  mentioned. 

Therefore,  the  principal   difference  between  the  Theo- 


3GO  ROSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

sophical  Society  and  the  R  03  i  crucian  fellowship  is  a  com- 
plete reversion  of  method.  For,  whereas  the  Theosophical 
Society  aims  to  form  a  nucleus  of  the  Universal  Brother- 
hood by  the  study  of  comparative  religion  and  only  take 
up  the  development  of  the  hidden  side'  of  man's  nature 
last- — and  many  even  decry  development  of  the  hidden 
powers — the  Eosicrucian  teaching  urges  the  pupil  first  of 
all  to  live  the  life,  to  concentrate  all  the  powers  of  his  being 
to  so  walk  that  he  may  be  fitted  for  possession  of  the  soul- 
powers  absolutely  essential  to  the  investigations  he  con- 
tamplates. 


QUESTION  No.  179. 

Is  the  White  Lodge  of  the  Theosophical  Society  the  same 
as  the  Temple  of  the  Rosicrucians? 


Answer:  N"o,  the  Theosophical  Society  is  simply  an 
exoteric  organization  for  the  dissemination  of  a  certain  phi- 
losophy, mostly  derived  from  the  Eastern  Religions,  while 
the  Rosicrucian  Fellowship  aims  to  promulgate  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Western  Mystery  School,  the  Order  of  Rosi- 
crucians, which  is  secret  and  not  accessible  to  anyone  except 
upon  direct  invitation. 

As  to  the  relation  of  the  Order  of  Rosicrucians  and  kin- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  361 

died  Mystery  Orders  to  the  White  Lodge,  we  may  say  that 
there  are  in  different  places  of  the  earth  a  number  of  these 
schools  of  the  lesser  mysteries,  each  of  them  composed  of 
twelve  brethren,  and  also  a  thirteenth  member.  The  latter 
is  the  link  between  the  different  schools,  and  all  these  heads 
or  thirteenth  members  compose  what  is  ordinarily  known 
as  the  White  Lodge,  namely,  a  supreme  conclave  of  the 
Eldest  among  our  Brothers,  who  are  now  in  full  charge  of 
human  evolution  and  plan  the  steps  we  are  to  follow  in 
order  to  advance. 


QUESTION  Xo.  180. 

What  do  you  understand  l>y  the  term  Master,  and  is  the 
Rosicrucian  Fellowship  movement  inspired  by  them9 


Answer:  In  the  far  East  the  pupil  who  aspires  to  the 
higher  life  seeks  a  "Master"  and  is  bound  hand  and  foot, 
figuratively  speaking,  to  that  Master.  He  must  blindly 
follow  the  instructions  of  his  Master,  without  the  least 
hesitancy  or  exhibition  of  curiosity  concerning  the  purpose 
of  whatever  directions  are  given  him.  He  must  'render 
the  Master  personal  service  of  whatever  kind  required  and 
at  whatever  cost  or  inconvenience  to  himself,  and  thus,  in 
short,  he  becomes  virtually  the  slave  of  an  often  very  ex- 
acting taskmaster. 

That  seems  to  be  a  very  barbaric  method,  but  it  is  doubt- 


362  ROSICRTK'IAN  PHILOSOPHY 

less  the  only  way  to  overcome  the  indolence  of  the  Oriental, 
and  as  they  are  a  backward  class  of  Egos  they  are  accus- 
tomed to  servility  and  subserviency,  so  that  it  works  no 
hardship  to  their  finer  feelings.  But  here  in  the  West  such 
a  method  would  be  altogether  degrading,  for  we  have  ad- 
vanced to  such  a  stage  of  individuality  that  we  can  onljf 
progress  by  action  from  within,  and  if  we  make  any  prom- 
ises or  take  any  vows  \ve  ought  not  to  obligate  ourselves  to 
anyone  else,  but  make  our  promises  and  vows  to  ourselves ; 
for  if  we  cannot  keep  our  vows  to  ourselves,  we  certainly 
cannot  keep  promises  made  to  others. 

Furthermore,  we  may  break  a  promise  given  to  someone 
else  and  deceive  him  into  believing  that  we  have  kept  our 
faith,  but  we  cannot  deceive  ourselves.  If  we  break  a 
promise  made  to  ourselves  we  know  it  at  once,  and  there- 
fore the  pupil  in  the  West  is  instructed  to  make  his  prom- 
ise to  himself,  for  that  is  stronger  than  any  vow  to  an  out- 
sider. The  teacher  in  the  West  is  the  closest  fri?nd  and 
adviser  of  the  pupil,  for  he  follows  the  example  of  the 
Christ,  who  said  to  his  disciples:  "This  is  my  command- 
ment, that  ye  love  one  another,  as  I  have  loved  you.  Ye 
are  my  friends  if  ye  do  what  I  command  you  (and)  hence- 
forth 1  call  you  not  servants,  for  the  servant  knoweth  not 
what  his  lord  doeth  ;  but  T  have  called  you  friends,  for  all 
things  that  I  have  heard  of  my  Father  I  have  made  known 
unto  you."  John,  chapter  15, 'verses  12,  14,  15. 

The  Eosicrucian  Fellowship  is  not  backed  by  these 
teachers  or  inspired  by  them  ;  they  gave  certain  teachings 
to  the  writer  on  the  condition  that  he  should  spread  them 
to  the  be~t  of  his  ability,  and:  announced  their  readiness  to 
help  others  who  would  qualify  for  that  instruction.  Stu- 
dents of  these  teachings  have  banded  together  for  the  ben- 
efit of  associated  study,  but  there  is  no  hard  and  fast  organ- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  363 

ization,  nor  is  it  intended  to  form  one,  but  to  let  people 
obtain  this  teaching  anywhere  they  please.  We  prefer  that 
they  should  remain  in  their  churches. 


QUESTION  No.  181. 

//  one  wlw  believes  in  the  teachings  advanced  by  the 
Rosicrucians  earnestly  maintains  that  they  are  true,  is  he 
not  in  danger  of  becoming  dogmatic  and  intolerant  of  the 
opinions  of  others1?  And  what  should  be  his  attitude  to- 
wards those  who  refuse  to  accept  these  teachings? 


Answer:  It  is  of  utmost  importance  that  we  should 
recognke  the  fact  that,  at  least  in  our  present  limited 
existence,  we  cannot  possibly  arrive  at  truth  in  the  ulti- 
mate. Therefore,  that  which  seems  to  us  "truth,  and  the 
whole  truth"  is  most  likely  after  all  only  a  part  of  the 
truth.  As  we  evolve  and  become  capable  of  understand- 
ing more  and  more,  our  conceptions  of  life,  the  world,  and 
God,  change.  Therefore,  we  ought  at  all  times  to  have 
the  open  mind  so  that  we  may  receive  new  truth,  and  al- 
though we  should  never  be  lukewarm  but  always  earnest 
for  that  which  we  believe  to  be  the  truth,  we  should  never 
forget  the  fact  that  there  are  still  greater  truths  which 
we  have  not  yet  learned.  Then  we  are  open  minded  and 
cannot  become  creed  bound  or  hide  bound. 


ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Some  people  grow  so  extremely  enthusiastic  when  they 
have  found  something  which  appeals  to  them  as  truth, 
that  they  at  once  commence  a  veritable  crusade  to  compel 
others  to  share  it  with  them.  That  is  a  great  mistake. 
If  we  go  into  a  church  and  commence  asking  questions 
which  raise  doubts  in  the  minds  of  the  members  and 
make  them  uneasy  concerning  their  faith,  we  may  easily 
cause  a  sad  state  of  disturbance.  If  that  which  we 
have  to  give  appeals  to  them  and  becomes  an  anchor 
to  them,  so  that  they  may  rest  in  the  new  and  higher  faith, 
well  and  good.  But  if  it  so  happens  that  that  which  we 
have  to  give  is  beyond  them,  is  unacceptable,  we  maj  lead 
them  into  an  extremely  unhappy  frame  of  mind  and  they 
may  turn  to  materialism,  atheism  or  some  other  dreadful, 
skeptical  attitude.  Their  life,  in  that  case,  will  lie  at  our 
door.  \\e  should  always  make  it  a  rule  in  the  world  to 
be  very  quiet  about  what  we  believe  or  do  not  believe,  though 
never  neglectful  to  say  a  little  word  where  an  opportunity 
is  given,  and  if  that  word  brings  an  inquiry  we  should 
answer  it  fearlessly.  Thus  we  may  gradually  lead  the  in- 
quirer on.  He  will  not  be  thus  led  unless  he  is  seeking, 
and  when  we  find  out  that  he  desires  the  information,  we 
should  give  him  all  he  wants  and  give  it  freely.  Bit  we 
reiterate  that  it  is  a  serious  responsibility  to  tJintst  our 
opinion  upon  ears  that  are  unwilling  or  not  ready. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  365 

QUESTION  Xo.  182. 

How  is  it  that  not  many  who  study  the  highest  phi- 
losophy interest  themselves  in  bettering  industrial  condi- 
tions, such  as  the  abolition  of  wage  slavery,  which  is  as  de- 
grading and  brutal  as  Negro  slavery? 


Answer:  All  occultists  recognize  the  crying  needs  of 
the  day,  and  none  long  more  ardently  for  the  day  of  lib- 
eration, the  day  when  brotherly  love  shall  be  a  fact,  when 
the  nations  shall  beat  their  swords  into  plow  share  and 
their  spears  into  pruning  hooks,  as  prophesied  by  Isaiah, 
but  they  go  about  making  these  conditions  in  a  different 
way.  Socialistic  Labor  Unions  and  such  like  organizations 
are  seelnng  to  better  conditions,  but  the  occultist  maintains 
that  their  methods  are  inefficient,  and  frustrate  lasting 
realization  of  their  object,  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
it  is  men  who  make  conditions  and  not  conditions  that  make 
the  men.  If,  therefore,  we  seek  to  better  humanity  and 
raise  their  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  if  we  seek  to  ele- 
vate their  ideals,  then  when  men  have  become  better,  as  a 
natural  consequence,  conditions  will  be  better. 

Under  the  present  conditions,  when  a  labor  union,  by 
strike  or  through  the  employer's  fear  of  a  strike,  have  suc- 
ceeded in  gaining  a  better  condition,  the  employer  at  once 
commences  to  plot  how  he  may  checkmate  them  and  frus- 
trate their  object.  He  bands  together  with  other  em- 
ployers for  mutual  protection  and  these  organizations  are 
always  at  war  with  the  labor  unions.  The  better  conditions 
which  are  obtained  by  one  are  continually  changed  by  the 
other.  When,  however,  the  employer  as  well  as  the  em- 
ployed have  been  Christianized  and  have  learned  to  do  unto 


366  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

others  as  they  would  have  others  do  unto  them,  there  will 
be  no  necessity  for  labor  unions,  for  the  employers  will 
look  out  for  the  welfare  of  their  employes  and  anticipate 
their  wants.  This  state  of  affairs,  the  occultist  believes, 
can  be  brought  about  by  thi-nking  about  it,  because  all 
things  and  all  conditions  have  first  been  thoughts  in  the 
minds  of  men.  Therefore,  he  earnestly  prays  that  the 
minds  of  men  may  be  opened  to  the  fact  of  universal 
brotherhood,  that  they  may  take  into  their  hearts  the  love 
of  God  and  become  united  in  seeking  to  do  the  right  in- 
stead of  separately  planning  how  to  oppress  and  intimidate 
others. 


QUESTION  No.  183. 

Can  anyone  study  occultism,  live  the  higher  life  and  "be 
a  millionaire? 

Answer:  Christ  said  to  the  rich  young  man,  "Go,  get 
rid  of  all  thou  hast,"  but  the  young  man,  being  very  much 
taken  up  with  the  good  things  of  this  life,  went  away 
sadly,  and  the  Christ  remarked  concerning  the  difficulty 
besetting  the  rich  man's  entrance  into  heaven.  He  did  not 
say  that  it  is  impossible,  but  he  knew  what  a  snare  and  a 
temptation  there  is  in  riches.  Nevertheless,  a  man  may 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  367 

be  a  millionaire  and  still  striving  to  live  the  higher  life. 
Riches  are  a  clog  and  a  fetter,  but  it  would  be  absolutely 
wrong  to  infer  that  riches  prevent  occult  development. 
All  depends  upon  what  view  a  man  takes  of  his  riches. 
If  he  uses  them  for  the  purpose  of  self-aggrandizement  and 
to  oppress  his  fellowmen,  of  course  there  can  be  no  spir- 
itual growth,  but  where  a  man  regards  himself  as  the 
steward  of  his  possessions,  and  where  he  aims  to  build  fac- 
tories having  model  conditions  and  model  tenement  houses, 
etc.,  where  he  works  strenuously  himself  to  see  that  his 
philanthropic  ideas  are  being  carried  out,  and  that  his 
fellowmen  are  receiving  good  conditions  and  every  chance 
for  self  improvement,  wealth  is  an  enormous  power  for 
good.  When  a  man  works  thus  unselfishly  for  the  welfare 
of  others  he  will  not  have  much  chance  to  think  of  self- 
improvement,  and  his  spiritual  growth  will  be  unconscious 
rather  than  otherwise.  Nevertheless,  he  will  progress  enor- 
mously, and  his  opportunities  to  do  better  and  greater 
work  will  increase  as  the  years  pass  by  in  this  life  and  also 
in  future  lives.  That  was  really  the  meaning  of  the  parable 
of  the  talents.  Those  who  used  their  talents  were  made 
rulers  over  a  number  of  cities  in  order  to  give  them  ade- 
quate employment  in  the  evolutionary  scheme.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  a  man  owns  a  factory  and  becomes  so  im- 
bued with  a  desire  for  occult  development  that  he  selfishly 
sells  out  his  factory  and  throws  his  workmen  out  of  em- 
ployment in  order  that  he  may  develop  his  own  powers 
and  live  the  higher  life,  such  a  man  is  shirking  his  duty 
and  will  undoubtedly  receive  a  rebuke  at  the  hands  of  the 
Master,  for  he  has  buried  his  talent  and  in  a  new  life  he 
will  find  himself  deprived  of  the  opportunity  which  he  has 
neglected. 


368  KOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  184. 

Do  you  believe  in  capital  punishment?  Is  it  not  better 
and  more  merciful  than  imprisonment  for  life? 

Answer:  Among  the  savages  might  is  right,  the 
stronger  always  overpowers  the  weaker.  We  pride  ourselves 
that  in  our  civilization  we  have  come  to  a  higher  stage,  and 
that  we  practice  altruism  in  all  departments  of  our  polity. 
Nevertheless,  although  we  do  not  go  out  with  a  club  and 
promiscuously  murder  our  fancied  adversaries,  except  in 
war,  we  do  murder  in  a  refined  way  by  what  we  call  law. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  thief  was  hanged  by  law.  Now- 
adays we  designate  such  punishment  barbaric,  but  capital 
punishment  is  still  a  blot  upon  our  civilization.  Besides, 
we  are  much  more  refined  in  our  cruelty  than  the  people 
in  older  civilizations,  for  they  hanged  or  beheaded  the  so- 
called  criminal  in  short  order,  while  we  keep  him  incar- 
cerated for  years,  subject  him  to  the  torture  of  long  jury 
trials,  set  the  day  for  his  execution  a  long  way  ahead  and 
allow  him  in  the  meantime  to  suffer  death  by  anticipation 
during  all  the  intervening  time. 

We  profess  that  our  object  is  not  retaliation,  but  plead 
that  it  is  necessary  to  safeguard  society  and  to  deter  others 
from  committing  like  crimes,  but  capital  punishment  pro- 
motes murder.  When  a  man  has  homicidal  tendencies,  he 
should  be  properly  restrained  so  that  he  may  not  hurt  his 
fellowmen.  To  kill  him,  however,  does  not  restrain  him; 
death  liberates  him  in  the  Desire  World,  and  as  the  Desire 
World  is  all  about  us  he  is  at  perfect  liberty  to  go  among 
people  and  instil  into  them  thoughts  of  hatred  and  ven- 
geance against  society.  Therefore,  murder  is  multiplied. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  369 

Besides,,  homicidal  mania  is  aided  by  the  press.  The  glar- 
ing headlines  which  recite  the  ghastly  minutiae  of  the  crime 
incite  others  to  go  and  act  likewise.  If  the  press  would 
only  be  silent  about  murders  and  suicides  we  should  have  a 
great  deal  less  crime  in  the  land,  and  it  is  very  gratifying 
to  see  that  there  are  at  least  some  newspapers,  for  instance 
a  Christian  Science  publication,  which  refuses  to  print  any- 
thing that  is  not  good. 

As  to  the  part  of  the  question  which  says,  "Is  death 
not  better  than  imprisonment  for  life?"  we  may  say  "Per- 
haps, under  the  present  conditions  of  prison  regime,  it  is." 
But  that  branch  of  our  institutions  also  calls  for  reform 
and  we  have  much  to  do  and  undo  in  our  treatment  of  thosi 
whom  we  call  criminals.  They  are  our  brothers,  just  as 
much  as  flTe~~so-called  respectable  members  of  society  who 
have  not  yet  committed  the  unpardonable  crime  of  being 
found  out.  It  is  true  that  we  have  made  prison  life  some- 
what better  and  less  barbaric  than  it  used  to  be.  It  is 
also  true  that  we  have  probation  and  suspended  sentences 
nowadays,  but  we  are  far  from  treating  these  weaker 
brothers  properly  yet.  If  we  could  understand  thoroughly 
fhat  they  are  our  brothers  and  treat  them  as  we  would 
treat  a  weak  brother  who  was  the  son  of  our  own  mother, 
we  should  be  doing  nearer  right,  for  who  amongst  us  if 
his  own  brother  committed  a  wrong  would  send  him  to 
prison  with  scorn  or  call  him  "jail  bird"  when  he  had 
served  his  sentence,  or  ostracise  him  for  life  because  of  a 
weakness?  When  a  person  is  sick  with  typhoid  fever  we 
do  not  get  angry  with  him  and  send  him  to  the  hospital 
for  a  month ;  we  send  him  there  until  cured,  we  take  good 
care  of  him,  and  aim  to  aid  him  in  recovering  his  health, 
and  we  rejoice  with  him  when  he  is  well.  A  criminal  is 
weak  and  mentally  sick.  He  should  not  be  sent  to  prison 


370  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

for  a  term,  but  should  be  sent  to  an  institution  where  he 
could  be  properly  taught  and  helped  to  overcome  his  weak- 
ness. Not  until  we  treat  our  weaker  brothers  with  such 
loving  care  may  we  say  that  we  have  risen  above  the  bar- 
barian maxim  of  demanding  an  eye  for  an  eye.  How  can 
we  dare  to  pray  "forgive  us  our  transgressions  as  we  for- 
give those  who  trespass  against  us,"  while  we  treat  these 
poor  brothers  as  we  do  even  now? 


QUESTION  No.  185. 

What  is  the  viewpoint  of  the  Rosicrucians  on  woman 
suffrage  ? 


Answer:  The  spirit  is  neither  male  nor  female,  but 
manifests  alternately  as  man  and  woman,  so  that  looking 
at  woman  suffrage  from  the  larger  standpoint,  it  would  be 
to  the  advantage  of  the  men  of  the  present  day  to  grant 
women  that  which  is  really  their  right — a  full  and  com- 
plete equality  in  every  particular.  The  double  social  stand- 
ard which  obtains  at  the  present  time,  whereby  a  man  may 
commit  the  social  sin  without  being  ostracized,  should  be 
done  away  with.  Woman's  work  should  be  paid  as  much 
as  man's  work,  and  in  every  case  the  lines  which  are  laid 
down  so  admirably  in  Edward  Bellamy's  novel,  "Looking 
Backward,"  should  be  followed. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  371 

The  advisability  of  this  equitable  social  arrangement 
will  be  evident  if  we  look  at  life  from  the  viewpoint  that 
this  earth  life  is  but  one  in  many,  and  that  we  are  born 
as  men  and  women  alternately ;  but  there  are  other  reasons 
why  woman  should  be  given  the  franchise.  In  man  the 
dense  body  is  positive  and  man's  positive  forces  are  there- 
fore particularly  focused  upon  the  Chemical  Region  of 
the  Physical  World.  He  is  most  particularly  interested 
in  that  which  he  can  weigh,  measure,  analyze  and  work 
with  in  his  daily  life;  his  development  is  particularly  along 
the  material  lines,  shaping  the  earth  and  everything  upon 
it  to  suit  his  fancy,  but  taking  little  or  no  interest  in  the 
spiritual  side  of  things. 

Woman,  on  the  other  hand,  has  the  positive  vital  body 
and  as  a  result  is  intuitively  in  touch  with  the  spiritual 
vibrations  of  the  universe.  She  is  more  idealistic  and 
imaginative,  taking  a  great  interest  in  all  the  things  which 
make  for  the  moral  upliftment  of  the  race,  and  as  it  is  only 
by  the  moral  and  the  spiritual  growth  that  humanity  can 
advance  at  this  time,  she  is  really  the  prime  factor  in 
evolution.  It  would  be  of  an  enormous  benefit  to  the  race 
if  she  were  given  an  equal  right  with  man  in  every  par- 
ticular. For  not  until  then  can  we  hope  to  see  reforms 
brought  about  that  will  really  unite  humanity.  We  see 
that  by  analogy  if  we  will  look  into  the  home,  where  woman 
is  really  the  central  pillar  around  which  both  husband  and 
children  cluster.  According  to  her  ability  she  makes  the 
home  what  it  is,  she  is  the  cementing  influence  and  the 
peacemaker.  The  father  may  pass  out  by  death  or  other- 
wise, the  children  may  leave,  while  the  mother  remains,  the 
home  is  there;  but  when  the  mother  is  taken  away  by  death, 
the  home  is  at  once  broken  up. 

Some  have  argued,  "Yes,  but  when  she  is  taken  away  by 


372  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

politics  the  home  will  be  broken  up  just  as  much."  But 
of  that  there  need  be  no  fear.  During  the  transition  stage 
while  women  have  to  fight  for  their  rights,  and,  possibly,  a 
short  time  afterward,  until  they  have  adjusted  themselves, 
there  may  in  some  cases  be  a  neglect  of  the  home,  but  in 
the  places  where  it  has  already  been  tried  no  homes  have 
been  broken  up  and  much  good  has  been  achieved,  for 
women  can  always  be  counted  upon  to  stand  for  any  im- 
provement which  makes  for  morality.  While  laws  are 
only  makeshifts  to  bring  humanity  to  a  higher  plane  where 
each  one  will  be  a  law  unto  himself,  doing  right  without 
coercion,  it  is  nevertheless  necessary  that  such  reforms 
should  be  brought  about  at  the  present  time  by  legislation. 


QUESTION  No.  186. 

//  occultists  abstain  from  flesh  eating  because  it  requires 
a  tragedy  in  its  preparation,,  and  they  do  not  wish  to  be 
a  party  to  talcing  life,  either  directly  or  by  proxy,  is  it  not 
also  taking  life  when  we  eat  eggs  or  fruit,  vegetables,  etc.  ? 


Answer:  The  case  mentioned  by  the  inquirer  is  very 
different  from  taking  life  by  killing  an  animal.  In  fact, 
while  it  is  necessary  to  kill  an  animal  in  order  to  obtain 
its  flesh,  and  we  are,  therefore,  doing  it  harm,  we  are 
actually  helping  a  tree  when  we  take  the  fruit  away  from 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  373 

it,  as  will  be  readily  seen  when  we  understand  the  process 
of  germination. 

The  process  is  the  same  with  animals  as  with  human 
beings,  and  in  fact  with  all  kingdoms.  When  an  animal 
is  to  be  born,  the  group  spirit,  helped  by  nature  spirits  and 
angels,  fashions  the  vital  body  of  the  coming  animal,  which 
is  then  deposited  in  the  womb  of  the  mother  and  the  seed 
atoms  are  deposited  in  the  semen  of  the  male;  then  gesta- 
tion takes  place  and  an  animal  is  born.  Without  the  pres- 
ence of  the  seed  atom  and  the  matrix  vital  body  no  dense 
animal  body  can  be  formed.  Similar  conditions  govern 
fecundation  in  the  case  of  an  egg,  or  of  a  plant  seed.  They 
are  like  the  female  ova — they  are  so  many  opportunities. 
If  an  egg  is  put  into  an  incubator  or  under  a  hen,  the 
group  spirit  sends  forth  the  requisite  life,  accepting  the 
opportunity  for  embodiment.  If  a  seed  is  dropped  in  the 
soil,  that  is  al?o  fertilized  when  the  proper  conditions  have 
been  made  for  its  development,  but  not  before.  When  an 
egg  is  crushed,  cooked  or  in  other  ways  disqualified  for  its 
primal  designation,  or  where  a  seed  is  stored  for  years  per- 
haps, there  is  no  life,  and  consequently  we  do  no  wrong 
when  we  use  these  products  for  food.  It  is  even  beneficial 
to  plants  when  the  ripe  fruits  are  removed,  because  then 
they  cease  to  take  sap  from  the  tree  unnecessarily. 


374  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTION  No.  187. 

7s  that  terrible  entity  which  Glyndon  saw  in  Bulwer  Lyt- 
ioris  "Zanoni"  the  same  as  Mr.  Plyde  in  Robert  L.  Steven- 
son s  story  ? 


Answer:  isTo.  There  is  a  similarity  in  certain  respects, 
but  in  other  points  there  is  a  very  great  difference.  The 
dreadful  entity  seen  by  Glyndon  is  spoken  of  in  occultism 
as  the  "Dweller  on  the  Threshold."  When  the  neophyte 
enters  into  the  Desire  World  consciously,  having  left  his 
physical  body  behind  in  sleep,  he  must  pass  an  entity  such 
as  that  described  by  Glyndon.  This  is  the  embodiment  of 
all  the  evil  deeds  of  his  past  which,  having  not  yet  been 
expiated,  await  eradication  in  future  lives.  He  must  recog- 
nize and  acknowledge  that  entity  as  part  of  himself.  He 
must  promise  himself  to  liquidate,  as  soon  as  possible,  all 
the  debts  represented  by  yon  terrible  shape. 

This  entity  is  not  even  apparent  to  the  ordinary  man 
during  the  times  between  death  and  a  new  birth,  though 
ever  present.  It  is  a  demon,  and  is  offset  by  another  shape 
which  represents  all  the  good  a  man  has  done  in  the  past, 
and  may  be  called  his  guardian  angel,  but  these  twin  forms, 
as  said,  are  invisible  to  the  ordinary  man  at  all  times, 
though  ever  potent  in  his  life. 

It  sometimes  happens,  however,  that  an  individual  passes 
out  at  death  with  a  desire  nature  so  extremely  strong  that 
after  he  has  expiated  the  deeds  it  contained  in  Purgator}', 
and  has  entered  the  Second  Heaven,  this  shell  holds  to- 
gether and  lasts  until  the  man  is  reborn.  It  is  then  drawn 
to  him  by  magnetic  attraction  and  he  possesses,  as  it  were, 
a  double  desire  body.  The  desire  body  of  the  old  life  may 


QUESTIONS  AXD  ANS\YERS  375 

then  at  times  make  itself  felt  and  cause  him  to  lead  a 
double  life,  substantially  as  lelated  by  Bobert  Louis  Steven- 
son, impelling  him  to  do  deeds  which  he  loathes,  because 
the  suffering  engendered  in  expurgating  them  is  acting  as 
conscience  and  causing  him  to  repel  the  evil.  Fortunately, 
however,  such  cases  are  extremely  rare  at  this  present  date. 


QUESTION  No.  188. 

If  we  amputate  the  arm  of  a  man,  saiv  off  the  limb  of  a 
tree  and  blast  away  a  portion  of  a  cliff,  will  the  invisible 
counterpart  of  these  different  objects  also  be  severed? 


Answer:  In  the  case  of  the  arm  which  is  amputated,  the 
etheric  counterpart  will  still  remain  with  the  vital  body, 
although  there  is  a  certain  magnetic  tie  between  that  and 
the  physical  arm  which  is  buried.  A  case  is  on  record  of 
a  man  who,  having  had  his  arm  amputated,  complained 
bitterly  of  pains  as  if  something  were  piercing  the  flesh  of 
his  aim.  This  pain  continued  for  several  weeks,  when  the 
arm  was  at  last  exhumed  and  it  was  found  that  in  boxing 
a  nail  had  been  driven  through  the  flesh  in  the  place  where 
the  man  felt  pain.  When  the  nail  was  removed  the  pain 
ceased.  Persons  who  have  had  arms  or  limbs  amputatec. 


37U  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

sometimes  complain  of  pain  in  the  member  for  a  few  years 
after  the  operation.  Then  the  pain  ceases  because  the 
etheric  arm  has  decayed  synchronously  with  the  limb  in  the 
grave. 

The  vital  bod}''  of  the  plant  is  only  composed  of  the  two 
densest  ethers — the  chemical  ether  and  the  life  ether — 
which  enable  the  plant  to  grow  and  propagate,  but  it  lacks 
the  two  higher  ethers — the  light  ether  and  reflecting  ether 
— hence  it  has  no  sensation  or  memory  of  what  passes 
around  it.  Therefore,  amputation  of  a  limb  will  not  be 
felt  by  the  plant,  and  in  the  case  of  the  cliff  which  is 
blasted,  only  the  chemical  ether  is  present,  so  that  the  crys- 
tals will  have  no  feelings  at  all.  Still,  it  would  be  wrong 
to  infer  that  there  is  no  feeling  in  either  of  these  cases, 
for  though  the  plants  and  the  minerals  have  no  individual 
means  of  feeling,  they  are  enveloped  and  interpenetrated 
by  the  ethers  and  the  Desire  World  of  the  planet,  and  the 
Planetary  spirit  feels  everything,  on  the  same  principle 
that  our  finger,  having  no  individual  desire  body,  cannot 
feel,  but  we,  the  indwelling  spirits  inhabiting  the  body, 
feel  any  hurt  done  to  the  finger. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  377 

QUESTION  No.  189. 

Do  you  know  of  a  place,  a  home  or  retreat  where  one 
may  go  to  Hue  this  beautiful,  simple  and  harmless  life  you 
arc  advocating? 


Answer:  No,  we  do  not  know  of  any  home,  and  if  a 
home  were  founded  for  that  purpose,  we  should  feel  very 
sorry  for  its  inmates.  If  we  have  a  high  temper  and  go 
into  the  mountains  to  live  as  recluses  where  there  are  no 
people  to  rile  our  sensibilities,  it  is  small  credit  to  us  that 
we  do  not  hecome  impatient  with  others.  If  we  find  it  dif- 
ficult to  overcome  our  vices  or  faults  in  the  city,  and  go 
into  the  wilds  where  those  temptations  do  not  exist,  small 
is  our  credit  for  not  yielding.  We  have  been  placed  in  cities 
and  among  our  fellows  in  order  that  we  should  accustom 
and  accommodate  ourselves  to  them,  and  learn  to  keep  our 
tempers  despite  any  riling — learn  to  shun  temptations 
where  they  exist.  One  may  be  in  the  mountains  and  his 
heart  in  the  city,  or  he  may  immure  himself  in  a  monas- 
tery and  yet  be  longing  for  the  pleasures  of  the  world.  It 
is  best  to  stay  in  the  place  where  we  are  found  and  there 
develop  the  spiritual  qualities  that  shall  make  us  better  men 
and  women.  There  is  work  to  be  done  in  the  world,  and  if 
we  fly  from  the  world,  how  shall  we  do  it?  We  have  a 
responsibility  to  our  fellowmen.  Unless  we  discharge  that 
responsibility  we  are  shirking  our  duty,  and  fate  will  bring 
us  back  in  such  an  environment  that  we  cannot  escape. 
Therefore,  it  is  better  to  aim  to  learn  all  the  lessons  that 
are  at  our  hands  instead  of  running  away  from  them. 


f  isf  ttf 


QUESTIONS  CONCERNING  LIFE  ON  EARTH 

1. — If  we  were  pure  spirits  and  part  of  an  all-knowing 
God,  why  was  it  necessary  for  us  to  take  this  long 
pilgrimage  of  sin  and  sorrow  through  matter? 

2. — If  God  made  man  a  little  lower  than  the  Angels, 
how  will  man  ultimately  become  their  superior  in  the 
spiritual  world? 

3. — Why  should  it  he  necessary  for  us  to  come  into  this 
physical  existence?  Could  we  not  have  learned  the 
same  lessons  without  being  imprisoned  and  limited 
by  the  dense  conditions  of  the  material  world? 

4. — If  this  earth  life  is  so  important,  and  really  the  basis 
of  all  our  soul  growth,  the  latter  resulting  from  the 
experiences  we  gain  here,  why  is  our  earth  life  so 
short  in  comparison  with  the  life  in  the  inner  worlds, 
approximating  a  thousand  years  between  two  earth 
lives? 

5. — How  long  will  it  be  before  we  can  do  without  these 
physical  bodies  and  function  altogether  in  the  spir- 
itual worlds  again  ? 

6. — Does  the  spirit  enter  the  body  at  the  time  of  con- 
ception or  at  the  time  of  birth? 

7. — What  was  the  purpose  in  the  division  of  the  sexes? 
8. — Is  the  soul  of  a  woman  masculine  and  the  soul  of 
a  man  feminine? 

379 


380  BOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

9. — Do  we  keep  the  same  temperament  through  all  our 
lives? 

10. — Is  the  desire  body  subject  to  sickness,  and  does  it 
need  nutrition  and  replenishment? 

11. — How  is  it  that  we  atone  for  all  sin  in  Purgatory 
and  then  at  rebirth  must  again  suffer  through  the 
law  of  cause  and  effect  for  sins  of  a  former  life? 

12. — Is  conscience  the  voice  of  God  or  of  our  Guardian 
Angel  ? 

13. — What  is  genius? 

14. — Is  a  soul  that  is  born  as  a  woman  always  a  woman 
in  its  after  lives,  and  how  long  is  the  interval  be- 
tween two  earth  lives? 

15. — When  a  man  pays  his  debts,  cares'  for  his  family  and 
lives  a  moral  life  here,  will  he  not  be  all  right  here- 
after? 

16. — It  is  sometimes  contended  by  people  that  we  have  a 
right  to  think  what  we  will  and  are  not  responsible 
for  our  thoughts.  Is  that  so  from  an  occult  point 
of  view  ? 

17. — If  a  person  is  constantly  bothered  by  evil  thoughts 
which  keep  coming  into  his  mind  although  he  is 
always  fighting  them,  is  there  any  way  in  which  he 
can  cleanse  his  mind  so  that  he  will  think  only  good 
and  pure  thoughts? 

18. — If  woman  proceeded  from  man  as  per  tht  rib  story, 
will  she  in  the  final  return  to  unity  be  reabsorbed, 
losing  her  individuality  in  the  masculine  divinity  ? 

19. — Why  has  woman  been  cursed  by  inequality,  assumed 
inferiority  and  injustice  since  the  beginning  of  hu- 
man existence  upon  this  plane  ? 

20. — Why  was  the  suffering  Marguerite  so  extreme  and 
out  of  proportion  to  that  of  Faust,  even  to  imprison- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  381 

merit  and  the  death  penalty,  while  his  life,  liberty 
and  pursuit  of  happiness  was  unmolested? 

Marriage. 

21. — Is  there  any  place,  either  in  the  Old  or  Xew  Testa- 
ment, wherein  men  were  told  to  marry  and  then  live 
as  brother  and  sister  at  any  time  or  under  any  con- 
dition? And  if  not  in  the  Bible,  why  do  you 
teach  it  ? 

22. — Is  there  a  soul  mate  belonging  to  every  soul  through- 
out all  eternity  ?  If  so  would  it  not  be  better  to  re- 
main unmarried  a  thousand  years  than  to  marry  the 
wrong  mate? 

23. — Is  it  wrong  for  first,  second  or  third  cousins  to 
marry,  and  if  so,  why? 

24. — Would  it  be  wise  for  two  people  of  the  same  tem- 
perament to  marry  if  they  were  both  born  under  the 
same  sign  of  the  Zodiac,  in  August,  for  instance  ? 

25. — Please  give  the  view  of  the  occultist  regarding  the 
white  races  intermarrying  with  the  inferior  Mon- 
golians and  Negroes,  also  in  regard  to  their  progeny. 

26. — Why  is  the  Negro  commonly  said  to  be  marked  with 
the  curse  of  Cain,  if  he  is  the  descendant  of  Ham, 
according  to  Biblical  ethnology  ?  How  can  that  race 
be  any  older  than  the  sons  of  Shem  or  Japheth  ?  Is 
not  the  most  intellectual,  successful  and  enduring 
race  that  history  records,  namely  the  Jews,  the  one 
that  has  kept  itself  most  free  from  a  mixture? 

Children. 

27. — Has  the  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  any  specific  teach- 
ino-  concerning  the  training  of  children? 


382  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

28. — Why  are  children  born  in  a  family  where  they  are 
not  welcome? 

29. — Where  children  do  not  come  to  a  man  and  wife  who 
deeply  long  for  them,  is  there  not  some  way  to  in- 
duce some  soul  in  the  unseen  world  to  accept  their 
invitation  to  reincarnate?  Where  the  conditions  in 
the  home  are  most  favorable,  it  would  seem  that 
among  the  many  souls  awaiting  incarnation  one 
would  find  the  conditions  right? 

30. — How  do  you  explain  the  fact  that  a  child  so  often 
inherits  the  bad  characteristics  of  the  parents? 

31. — Does  not  the  child  inherit  the  blood  and  nervous  sys- 
tem from  its  parents?  If  so,  will  it  not  inherit  dis- 
ease and  nervous  disorders  also? 

Sleep  and  Dreams. 

32. — Can  a  person  be  influenced  in  natural  sleep  as  he  can 
in  hypnotic  sleep,  or  is  there  a  difference? 

33. — What  are  dreams,  have  they  all  a  significance,  and 
how  can  we  invite  or  induce  dreams  ? 

34. — What  is  sleep  and  what  causes  the  body  to  go  to 
sleep  ? 

Health  and  Disease. 

35. — Do  the  Eosicrucians  believe  in  materia  medica  or 
do  they  follow  Christ's  method  of  healing? 

36. — Do  you  think  it  wrong  to  take  medicine  to  remove 
pain,  since  all  is  the  result  of  our  own  doings,  if  one 
is  not  hopelessly  ill  or  dying? 

37. — In  case  of  sickness,  what  form  of  healing  do  you 
advise,  physician's  or  practitioner's,  as  in  the  Chris- 
tian Science  belief? 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  383 

38. — What  is  your  opinion  in  regard  to  fasting  as  a  means 
of  curing  disease  ? 

39. — Do  you  consider  it  wrong  to  try  to  cure  a  bad  habit, 
such  as,  for  instance,  drunkenness,  by  hypnotism? 

40. — Are  there  any  methods  of  eradicating  the  calcareous 
matter  which  comes  into  our  bodies  by  wrong  meth- 
ods of  diet? 

41. — Is  not  Nature  guilty  of  frequent  physical  malforma- 
tion in  the  plant  and  animal  world,  as  well  as  the 
human  race,  and  can  there  be  a  perfectly  whole  and 
sane  intelligence  with  a  forceful  will  in  a  diseased 
or  malformed  body? 

42. — Do  you  believe  in  vaccination  ? 

43. — If,  as  you  state,  the  Ego  dwells  in  the  blood,  is  not 
the  practice  of  blood  transfusion  from  a  healthy  to 
a  diseased  person  dangerous?  Does  it  affect  or  in- 
fluence the  Ego  in  any  way,  and  if  so,  how  ? 

44. — What  are  the  causes  of  insanity  ? 

45. — When  an  insane  person  dies,  will  he  still  be  insane 
in  the  Desire  World  ? 

QUESTIONS  CONCERNING  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 

46. — What  is  the  use  of  knowing  about  the  after  death 
state,  what  happens  in  the  Invisible  World,  and  all 
these  things?  Is  it  not  far  better  to  take  one  world 
at  a  time?  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  trouble 
thereof,  why  borrow  more? 

47. — Is  there  any  time  set  to  the  limit  of  earth  life  be- 
fore we  are  born  ? 

48. — Is  it  possible  to  shorten  the  time  between  death  and 
a  new  birth  so  as  to  hasten  one's  evolution,  and  if  so, 
how? 


384  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

49. — Are  there  seasons  and  times,  ages  and  epochs  in  the 
other  world  ? 

50. — Does  a  person  who  has  been  buried  alive  become  con- 
scious of  his  condition,  and  how  does  the  spirit  get 
back  to  the  body  when  it  lies  in  the  grave? 

51.— Why  do  children  die? 

52. — What  is  the  cause  of  the  vast  number  of  deaths  which 
occur  in  infancy  and  childhood? 

53. — Does  the  cremation  of  the  dense  body  after  death 
affect  the  spirit  in  any  way? 

54. — If  a  person  has  lost  his  memory  through  nervous 
shock  or  fever,  does  that  affect  his  vital  body  and 
prevent  him  from  getting  the  record  of  his  life  in 
the  three  days  immediately  following  death  ? 

55. — If  a  disembodied  spirit  can  pass  through  a  wall,  can 
it  also  pass  through  a  mountain  and  the  earth,  and 
can  it  see  what  is  inside? 

56. — Do  we  meet  our  loved  ones  after  death,  even  if  they 
have  held  a  different  belief  from  our  own,  or,  per- 
haps, been  atheists? 

57. — Do  we  recognize  loved  ones  who  have  passed  out 
through  the  gate  of  death  ? 

58. — Does  the  man  who  commits  suicide  stay  longer  in 
Purgatory  than  the  people  who  die  naturally? 

59. — Does  a  good  man  have  to  go  through  Purgatory  and 
be  conscious  of  all  the  evil  that  is  there  before  he 
can  get  into  the  First,  Second  and  Third  Heavens, 
and  if  so,  isn't  that  an  undeserved  punishment? 

60. — What  is  the  condition  of  the  victim  of  a  murder  and 
the  victim  of  an  accident  subsequent  to  death? 

61. — Where  is  heaven? 

62. — It  is  said  that  there  is  no  sorrow  in  heaven,  but  if 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  385 

our  loved  ones  are  met  there  and  then  pass  on,  does 
not  the  parting  from  them  involve  a  sense  of  dis- 
satisfaction? 

63. — Please  explain  how  to  concentrate  in  order  to  help 
those  in  the  other  world.  Do  you  mean  sitting  in 
the  silence  and  sending  out  loving,  helpful  thoughts 
to  them? 

64. — Do  those  who  have  passed  out  of  earth  life  keep 
watch  and  ward  over  us  who  are  left  behind?  For 
instance,  do  mothers  look  after  their  little  children 
or  even  the  larger  ones  ? 

QUESTIONS  CONCERNING  REBIRTH 

65. — Why,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  we  reincarnated 
without  having  the  slightest  knowledge  of  any  pre- 
vious existence,  and  thus  suffer  blindly  in  this  life 
for  transgressions  of  which  we  are  entirely  ignorant, 
committed  in  some  former  life?  Does  it  not  seem  as 
though  we  could  get  better  and  quicker  spiritual  ad- 
vancement if  we  knew  how  and  why  we  had  erred 
before,  and  what  acts  we  must  correct  before  we  can 
progress  ? 

66. — Are  all  the  human  beings  that  people  the  earth  at 
the  present  time  souls  .that  have  gone  through  earth 
life  before,  or  are  new  souls  being  created  all  the 
time  ? 

67. — How  do  we  know  beyond  a  doubt  that  rebirth  is  a 
fact  ?  Is  it  not  possible  that  those  who  so  state  may 
be  suffering  from  hallucination? 

68. — Do  the  souls  that  have  passed  into  Purgatory  and 
through  the  First,  Second  and  Third  Heavens  come 
back  here  and  reincarnate  on  this  earth,  or  do  they 
go  to  other  spheres  ? 


13 


386  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

69. — Do  we  come  in  contact  with  the  friends  of  one  life 
when  we  are  born  again  into  a  new  life? 

70. — Is  the  experience  gained  in  each  incarnation  re- 
corded separately  and  added  to  the  previous  ones,  so 
that  in  the  ultimate  the  spirit  is  entirely  conscious 
of  the  complete  sum  of  its  experiences,  or  is  that 
experience  more  or  less  unconsciousty  absorbed  by 
the  next  succeeding  incarnation,  so  that  only  a  gen- 
eral effect  is  obtained  ? 

71. — When  the  spirit  coming  down  to  rebirth  has  drawn 
to  itself  its  mind  stuff  and  sinks  into  the  Desire 
World,  will  it  not  then  be  in  Purgatory  again  ? 

72. — How  can  you  believe  in  the  theory  of  reincarnation — 
that  we  come  back  here  in  the  body  of  an  animal? 
Is  it  not  much  more  beautiful  to  believe  in  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  that  we  go  to  heaven  with  God  and 
the  Angels? 

QUESTIONS  CONCERNING  THE  BIBLE  TEACHINGS 

73. — Why  is  it  that  every  sect  interprets  the  Bible  dif- 
ferently and  that  each  one  gets  an  apparent  vindi- 
cation for  its  idea  from  that  book  ? 

74. — What  is  meant  by  the  second  aspect  of  the  Triune 
God? 

75. — Are  the  Recording  Angels  individual  beings? 

76. — Do  the  Angels  and  Archangels  watch  over  us  in- 
dividually as  well  as  collectively  and  know  just  what 
our  lives  are? 

77. — Have  Angels  wings  as  shown  in  pictures? 

78. — Do  the  Rosicrucians  accept  the  Bible  as  the  Word 
of  God  from  cover  to  cover? 

79. — What  is  the  viewpoint  of  the  Rosicrucians  concern- 
ins;  the  creation  of  the  world  in  seven  days? 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  387 

80. — The  Bible  teaches  the  immortality  of  the  soul  in  an 
authoritative  manner.  The  Rosicrucian  teaches  the 
same  professedly  by  appealing  to  reason.  Are  there 
no  positive  proofs  of  immortality  ? 

81. — Is  there  any  authority  in  the  Bible  for  the  theory  of 
rebirth  ? 

82. — According  to  the  Bible  only  man  was  given  a  soul. 
Why,  then,  do  you  say  that  the  animals  have  a  group 
spirit  ? 

83. — Is  it  true  that  Eve  was  taken  out  of  Adam's  side? 

84. — If  God  made  man  in  his  image  and  likeness  and  sup- 
posedly perfect,  why  were  the  different  epochs  prior 
to  the  fall  of  Adam  and  Eve  necessary? 

85.— What  was  the  sin  or  fall  in  Eden? 

86. — Is  the  Tree  of  Life  spoken  of  in  the  Bible  the,,  same 
as  the  Philosopher's  Stone  of  the  Alchemist  ? 

87. — The  Lord  had  respect  unto  Abel  and  his  bloody  of- 
fering, but  unto  Cain  and  his  sweet  and  clean  offer- 
ing He  had  not  respect.  Why? 

88. — What  is  the  esoteric  significance  of  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant  ? 

89. — Is  there  an  occult  significance  in  the  various  Chris- 
tian feasts  of  the  year? 

90. — I  understood  you  to  say  that  the  Christ  had  been  in- 
carnated only  once,  in  Jesus.  Was  he  not  previously 
incarnated  in  Buddha  and  still  earlier  in  Krisna? 

91. — W^e  are  told  that  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He 

gave  His  only  begotten  Son  that  whosoever  believeth 

in  Him  shall  not  die  but  have  everlasting  life.   How 

do  you  reconcile  that  idea  with  the  words  of  Christ, 

"I  came  not  to  bring  peace,  but  a  sword." 

92. — What  is  meant  by  everlasting  salvation  and  damna- 
tion? 


388  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

93. — What  is  the  teaching  of  the  Kosicrucians  concerning 
the  Immaculate  Conception? 

94. — Was  not  the  Star  of  Bethlehem  a  comet? 

95. — What  were  the  gifts  of  the  Wise  Men? 

96. — Was  not  Jesus  a  Jew,  and  if  so,  what  did  he  mean 
by  saying  "Before  Abraham  was  I  am,"  for  even  if 
He  reincarnated,  Abraham  was  the  father  of  the 
Jewish  race? 

97. — Jesus  was  baptized  at  thirty,  receiving  the  Christ 
spirit.  Please  explain  this  baptism. 

98. — In  your  teaching  you  state  that  we  stay  for  a  time 
averaging  one-third  of  the  length  of  the  earth  life 
in  Purgatory,  in  order  that  our  sins  may  be  ex- 
piated prior  to  going  to  heaven.  How,  then,  do  you 
reconcile  this  teaching  with  the  words  of  the  Christ 
to  the  dying  thief,  "Today  thou  shalt  be  with  Me 
in  Paradise." 

99. — What  is  the  esoteric  meaning  of  the  two  thieves  on 

the  cross? 

100. — What  is  the  meaning  of  the  cross,  is  it  simply  the 
instrument  of  torture  as  usually  taught  in  the  ortho- 
dox religion  ? 

101. — Could  not  the  mission  of  Christ  have  been  accom- 
plished without  such  a  drastic  method  as  crucifixion  ? 
102. — According  to  the  Rosicrucian  teaching,  when  will 

Christ  come  again  ? 

103. — What  is  meant  by  the  saying  that  Christ  was  made  a 

High  Priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec? 

104. — What  did  Christ  mean  when  he  said,  "All  who  came 

before  Me  were  thieves  and  robbers"  ? 

105. — What  did  Christ  mean  when  He  said  "Whosoever 
shall  not  receive  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child, 
shall  not  enter  therein"  ? 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  389 

106. — Did  not  Jesus  eat  fish?  Why,  then,  are  the  Rosi- 
crucians  vegetarians  ? 

107.— If  Christ  fed  the  multitude  with  fish,  why  is  it 
wrong  for  us  to  use  them  as  food  ? 

108. — Please  explain  why  the  fatted  calf  was  not  killed  for 
the  righteous  son  instead  of  for  the  prodigal.  Was 
that  not  giving  a  reward  for  wrong  doing? 

109. — Why  did  the  Lord  commend  the  unjust  steward,  as 
related  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Luke? 

110. — What  is  meant  by  sinning  against  the  Holy  Ghost? 

111. — Is  the  Christian  Creed  authoritative? 

112. — How  do  you  reconcile  the  law  of  cause  and  effect 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins  ? 

113. — By  what  power  did  Peter  raise  Dorcas  from  the 
dead  ? 

114. — Do  you  believe  in  conversion? 

115. — Is  there  any  value  in  confession  and  absolution? 

HG.^Is  there  an)7  value  in  the  Latin  ritual  used  by  the 
Catholic  Church  ?  Would  it  not  be  better  if  it  were 
translated  so  that  people  could  understand  it,  and 
are  not  the  extemporaneous  prayers  used  in  the  Prot- 
estant Churches  much  to  be  preferred  to  the  ritual 
and  stereotyped  masses  of  the  Catholics? 

117. — What  is  the  actual  merit  in  martyrdom;  did  the 
martyrs  really  become  saints? 

118. — In  one  of  your  lectures,  you  said  in  effect  that  it  was 
a  mistake  to  send  missionaries  to  foreign  countries ; 
that  the  religions  practiced  by  the  so-called  heathen 
are  right  for  them  at  the  present  time,  but  that  the 
missionaries  have  done  little  harm  as  yet.  How, 
then,  do  you  reconcile  the  command  of  the  Christ, 
"Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature." 


390  EOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

QUESTIONS  CONCERNING  SPIRITUALISTIC  PHENOMENA 

119. — Is  mediumship  injurious  to  health? 

120. — Where  mediums  make  so-called  soul  trips,  what  is 
it  that  leaves  the  physical  body,  and  can  it  leave  in 
the  waking  state  to  gather  data  ? 

121. — I  have  taken  many  soul  flights,  and  on  one  of  these 
journeys  my  guide  took  me  through  gates  into  a 
crystal  city  and  on  into  a  temple  filled  with  ethereal 
people,  saying,  "This  is  God's  Holy  City."  Will 
you  kindly  tell  me  where  this  is  and  why  there  are 
gates  and  walls  around  the  city,  and  why  everything 
looked  like  crystal  ? 

122. — Are  not  the  desire  bodies  left  by  those  who  have 
progressed  beyond  the  Desire  World  used  by  ele- 
ment als  to  deceive  friends  and  relatives  of  the  de- 
ceased person?  How  can  they  be  detected  and  rec- 
ognized by  them? 

123. — Can  elementals  assume  the  shape  of  animals  or  rep- 
tiles, and  what  can  be  done  to  stop  them  from 
doing  it? 

124. — How  can  one  avoid  becoming  obsessed  ? 

125. — What  is  psychometry? 

126. — Is  it  true  that  at  spiritualistic  seances  persons  are 
sometimes  transported  bodily  from  one  place  to  an- 
other by  invisible  hands,  flowers  are  brought  into  the 
room  through  closed  windows  and  doors,  and  if  so, 
how  can  that  be  done  ? 

127, — "\yiii  yOU  kindly  explain  the  use  of  the  planchette, 
and  state  if  it  is  advisable  to  try  to  produce  the 
phenomena  among  amateurs? 

128. — Is  a  vampire  the  same  as  a  werewolf? 

129. — What  is  the   difference  between   a  trance  medium, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  391 

materializing  medium,,  the  trained  clairvoyant  and 
the  ordinary  person  ? 

130. — If  mediumship  is  so  dangerous,  why  do  not  the  me- 
diums cease  to  allow  themselves  to  be  controlled? 

QUESTIONS  CONCERNING   CLALB  7OYANCE 

131. — What  is  the  difference  between  a  clairvoyant,  an 
Initiate  and  an  Adept? 

132. — Why  is  it  that  trained  clairvoyants  do  not  offer  to 
lend  themselves  to  some  simple  but  conclusive  tests 
conducted  by  men  o,f  science  which  would  convince 
everybody  of  the  reality  of  faculties  transcending 
the  physical  senses  ? 

133. — If  clairvoyance  is  such  an  accurate  means  of  inves- 
tigation, such  a  high  spiritual  faculty,  why  do  we 
usually  see  it  in  possession  of  people  of  little  educa- 
tion and  coarse  breeding,  who  have  seemingly  very 
little  spirituality  and  who  often  tell  lies? 

134. — What  do  you  mean  by  initiation,  and  why  are  only 
men  Initiates? 

135. — Is  it  not  the  duty  of  one  who  is  informed  on  sub- 
jects concerned  with  the  higher  life  to  give  informa- 
tion and  help  to  the  less  informed  ? 

^.36. — What  qualifications  are  necessary  to  become  an  In- 
visible Helper?  Must  the  whole  life  be  given  over 
to  spiritual  endeavor? 

137. — What  purpose  has  the  person  in  going  out  of  his 
body  ? 

138. — Is  it  absolutely  necessary  to  live  a  life  of  aceticism 
in  order  to  become  spiritual  and  endowed  with  psy- 
chic powers? 

139. — Are  all  children  clairvoyant  up  to  a  certain  age? 

140. — What    is   the    difference   between   white   and    black 


392  ROSICBUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

magic,  and  what  is  the  effect  of  the  practice  of  black 
magic  upon  the  soul? 

141. — You  speak  of  the  western  and  eastern  schools  of  oc- 
cultism. Is  not  the  western  school  the  better,  and 
if  cio,  why? 

1-12. — What  is  the  difference  between  etheric  sight,  clair- 
voyance, and  the  sight  pertaining  to  the  World  of 
Thought  ? 

143. — Is  it  safe  for  a  person  in  a  greatly  debilitated  nervous 
condition  to  take  occult  training  given  by  the  Rosi- 
crucians,  or  is  it  necessary  for  such  a  person  to  first 
recover?  Is  health  regained  by  occult  training? 

144. — A  sound  body  being  necessary  for  spiritual  unfolcl- 
ment,  what  does  the  Rosicrucian  teaching  hold  out 
to  one  not  at  present  in  the  best  physical  condition? 
Will  perfect  health  be  one  result  of  the  study  of  this 
philosophy,  and  if  the  teaching  is  practiced,  will  it 
tend  to  keep  a  person  in  good  health? 

145. — In  "what  way  will  it  help  us  in  the  life  after  death 
if  we  have  cultivated  clairvoyance  in  the  present 
life? 

146. — Would  the  contemplation  of  the  God  within,  if  per- 
sistently carried  on,  aid  one  in  spiritual  growth  and 
bring  one  to  adeptship? 

147. — Has  it  not  been  recorded  that  certain  individuals 
have  developed  spiritual  power,  clairvoyance,  sixth 
sense,  or  whatever  we  wish  to  call  it,  by  living  a 
clean  life  in  harmony  with  nature's  laws,  and  does 
not  the  teachings  of  modern  occultists  with  so  many 
terms  of  technicality  have  a  tendency  to  create  con- 
fusion rather  than  bring  the  desired  results  ? 

148. — Is  it  possible  to  cultivate  clairvoyance  by  the  use 
of  drugs,  by  crystal  gazing  or  breathing  exercises, 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  393 

and  do  these  methods  not  bring  results  quicker  than 

the  methods  you  advocate? 

149. — What  time  in  the  morning  is  best  for  concentration? 
150. — It  is  difficult  for  me  to  review  the  events  of  the  «iy 

in  reverse  order  when  doing  my  evening  exercises. 

Is  this  absolutely  necessary,  and  if  so,  why? 
151. — What   value   are   breathing   exercises   in   developing 

body  and  mind? 
152. — Is  not  the  Invisible  World  of  which  you  speak  very 

unreal  and  shadowy  in  comparison  to  this  world  in 

which  we  now  live? 

QUESTIONS  CONCERNING  ASTROLOGY 

153. — Is  it  possible  that  astrology  and  palmistry  can  be 
true,  inasmuch  as  we  could  avert  coming  disaster  by 
being  forewarned  in  that  manner?  And  would  it 
not  interfere  with  our  destiny? 

154. — Is  it  wrong  to  use  palmistry,  astrology  or  phrenol- 
ogy as  a  means  of  livelihood? 

155. — Are  Mars,  Jupiter  and  other  planets  inhabited;  if 
so.  are  those  people  superior  to  the  people  on  earth; 
do  the  souls  from  the  earth  ever  .reincarnate  on  other 
planets  and  vice  versa? 

156. — Does  not  the  nebular  theory  account  for  the  exist- 
ence of  the  universe  in  a  much  more  scientific  man- 
ner than  the  creation  stories  of  the  Bible? 

157. — What  are  comets? 

158. — Does  the  movement  of  a  planet  through  space  create 
a  noise? 

159. — What  is  the  esoteric  significance  of  the  use  of  the 
names  of  the  twelve  sons  of  Jacob  in  connection  with 
the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  and  are  these  used 


394  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

in  connection  with  the  earth's  zodiac  or  the  sun's 
zodiac,  or  both? 

160. — Can  you  give  an  idea  of  the  difference  between  helio- 
centric and  geocentric  astrology  ?  Is  the  geocentric 
concerned  only  with  the  affairs  of  this  earth,  the 
material  life,  and  the  heliocentric  with  the  soul  or 
the  spiritual  side  ?  The  sun,  being  the  spiritual 
planet  and  the  ruler  of  our  solar  system,  would  lead 
to  this  conclusion.  Inasmuch  as  we  use  the  sun's 
1  zodiac  in  heliocentric  astrology  and  the  earth's  zodiac 
in  geocentric.  Can  predictions  in  this  life  ever  be 
made  by  the  sun's  zodiac,  or  is  the  latter  simply 
concerned  with  the  spiritual  side  of  a  person's 
nature  ? 

161. — How  is  it  possible  to  get  on  good  terms  with  Saturn? 
The  inquirer  has  been  under  his  influence  all  his  life. 
Sickness,  poverty,  loss  of  inheritance,  and  accidents 
are  bad  enough,  but  can  Saturn  also  cause  us  trouble 
spiritually;  can  he  put  barriers  up  for  our  unfokl- 
ment  when  our  spirit  is  struggling  for  the  good,  and 
are  we  liberated  from  his  influence  when  we  pass 
out  at  death  ? 

162. — How  may  we  .pray  to  or  address  Saturn  when  he  is 
the  ruling  star  causing  us  trouble  and  sorrow  ? 


QUESTIONS  CONCERNING  ANIMALS 

163. — Why  do  animals,  which  are  a  lower  evolution,  have 
an  instinct  which  seems  so  much  more  reliable  than 
the  reason  of  human  beings? 

164.— Can  you  throw  some  light  on  what  our  attitude  to- 
ward the  lower  forms  of  life  should  be?  Have  we 
the  right  to  kill  anything  harmless,  since  every  liv- 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  395 

ing  thing  is  in  a  sense  our  brother  ?  How  about  the 
venomous  insects  and  reptiles  ? 

165. — Are  not  venomous  and  destructive  reptiles  created  by 
the  evil  thoughts  of  men,  so  far  as  the  form  is  con- 
cerned? And,  therefore,  is  it  not  an  act  of  love  to 
kill  them  and  thus  liberate  the  divine  spark  within 
so  that  it  may  occupy  a  higher  form  ? 

166. — What  is  a  group  spirit,  where  is  it,  and  what  does  it 
look  like? 

167. — Are  animals  amenable  to  the  law  of  causation? 

168. — Do  animals  live  after  death? 

169. — When  a  pet  dog  or  cat  dies,  does  the  entire  group 
spirit  to  which  it  belongs  die  at  the  same  time? 
Also  what  becomes  of  the  animal  soul,  and  does  the 
human  love  and  care  it  has  received  help  it  on  its 
upward  journey? 

170. — What  substance  does  a  person  or  animal  throw  off 
whereby  they  can  be  traced,  as,  for  example,  crim- 
inals are  traced  by  bloodhounds? 

MISCELLANEOUS  QUESTIONS 

171. — What  is  the  origin  of  life? 

172. — What  is  matter?    Is  it  not  unreal? 

173. — You  said  in  a  previous  lecture  that  the  earth  is  the 
body  of  a  spirit  which  gives  its  life  for  the  dwellers 
upon  the  surface.  Why  does  it  give  flowers  and  fruit 
to  some  and  earthquake  and  famine  to  others? 

174. — What  is  meant  by  the  sentence,  "Man,  know  thy- 
self? 

175.— What  is  the  Holy  Grail? 

176. — What  was  the  connection  between  the  pyramid  build- 
ers of  Egypt  and  the  pyramid  builders  of  Central 
America?  Which  is  the  older  civilization? 


396  BOSICHUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

177. — What  is  the  essential  difference  between  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  and  the  orthodox 
church  ? 

178. — Kindly  state  the  essentials  wherein  the  Rosicrucinn 
Philosophy  differs  from  Theosophy. 

179.— Is  the  White  Lodge  of  the  Theosophical  Society  the 
same  as  the  Temple  of  the  Rosicrucians  ? 

180. — What  do  you  understand  by  the  term  Master,  and  is 
the  Rosicrucian  Fellowship  a  movement  inspired  by 
them  ? 

181. — If  one  who  believes  in  the  teachings  advanced  by  the 
Rosicrucians  earnestly  maintains  that  they  are  true, 
is  he  not  in  danger  of  becoming  dogmatic  and  in- 
tolerant of  the  opinions  of  others?  And  what  should 
be  his  attitude  toward  those  who  refuse  to  accept 
these  teachings? 

182. — How  is  it  that  not  many  who  have  studied  the  highest 
philosophy  interest  themselves  in  bettering  industrial 
conditions,  such  as  the  abolition  of  wage  slavery, 
which  is  as  degrading  and  brutal  as  Negro  slavery? 

183. — Can  anyone  study  occultism,  live  the  higher  life  and 
be  a  millionaire? 

184. — Do  you  believe  in  capital  punishment?  Is  it  not  bet- 
ter and  more  merciful  than  imprisonment  for  life? 

185. — WThat  is  the  viewpoint  of  the  Rosicrucians  on  woman 
suffrage  ? 

186. — If  occultists  abstain  from  flesh  eating  because  it  re- 
quires a  tragedy  in  its  preparation,  and  they  do  not 
wish  to  be. a  party  to  taking  life,  either  directly  or  by 
proxy,  is  it  not  also  taking  life  when  we  eat  eggs  or 
fruit,  vegetables,  etc.  ? 

387. — Is  that  terrible  entity  which  Glyndon  saw  in  Bulwer 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  397 

Lytton's  "Zanoni"  the  same  as  Mr.  Hyde  in  Eobert 
L.  Stevenson's  story? 

188.— If  we  amputate  the  arm  of  a  man,  saw  off  the  limb  of 
a  tree  and  blast  away  a  portion  of  a  cliff,  will  the  in- 
visible counterpart  of  these  different  objects  also  bo 
severed  ? 

189. — Do  you  know  of  a  place,  a  home  or  retreat  where  one 
may  go  to  live  this  beautiful,  simple  and  harmless 
life  you  are  advocating? 


Question 

ANGELS.  No. 

Man  a  little  lower  than  angels -r-. 2 

Have  Angels  wings  ? 77 

The  work  of  the  Angels  in  evolution 81 

ARCHANGELS. 

Do  the  Archangels  and  Angels  work  with  us  individually?  76 

ANIMALS. 

Are  animals  amenable  to  the  law  of  Causation? 167 

Why  hybrids  cannot  propagate 23 

Why   all   oxen   thrive   on  grass,   but   one   man's  meat   is 

another 's  poison 35 

How  it  benefits  an  animal  to  be  killed 101 

Why  not  use  fish  as  food?    Christ  fed  them  to  people.  . .  .  107 

Elementals    in    animal    shapes 123 

Why  is  animal  instinct  more  reliable  than  reason? 163 

Is  it  right  to  kill  venomous  insects  and  reptiles? 164 

May  we  kill  animals  to  help  them  advance? 165 

Do  animals  live  after  death  ? 168 

What  is  a  group-spirit  ? 166 

Does  our  love  help  animals  in  evolution? 169 

What  is  the  efluvia  whereby  bloodhounds  trace  a  man?.  .  170 

ASTROLOGY. 

What    is    the    connection    between    Pyramid-builders    of 

Egypt  and  Central  America? 176 

Comets  and  miscarriages 157 

399 


400  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 
No. 

Can  Astrology  predict  the  result  of  a  marriage? 24 

Astrological  conditions  favorable  to  conception  of  child.  27 

Astrology  as  a  factor  in  healing 35 

Astrology   the   only   means   of   determining   time   in   the 

Beyond 49 

Astrology  reveals  ripe  or  mature  destiny 65 

Astrology  and  the  feasts  of  the  year 93 

Was  the  Star  of  Bethlehem  a  Comet? 94 

Why  the  Cross  and  the  Lamb  are  the  proper  symbol  of 

Christ   100 

Astrology  and  interference  with  Destiny 153 

Is  it  wrong  to  use  Astrology  for  a  livelihood? 154 

Do  souls  from  the  other  planets  incarnate  here  and  vice 

versa  ? 155 

The  Harmony  of  the  Spheres 158 

Why  are  the  names  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  connected  with 

the  signs  of  the  Zodiac  1 159 

What  is  the  difference  between  Heliocentric  and  Geocen- 
tric Astrology?   160 

Which  are  the  good  and  evil  planets? 161 

Prayer;  the  Star-Angels  and  their  Ambassadors 162 

ARCHETYPES. 

How  the  archetype  in  heaven  determines  length  of  life.  .  47 

How  archetype  causes  suffering  of  suicide  in  Purgatory.  58- 

ACCIDENT. 

Accidents  as  factor  in  infant  mortality 52 

Post-mortem  condition  following  death  by  accident 60 

Accident  as  a  factor  in  evolution 165 

AUTOPSY. 

In  its  effects  upon  the  spirit 53 

ADEPT. 

Difference  between  Clairvoyant;  Initiate  and  Adept 131 

Will  contemplation  of  the  God  within  lead  to  Adeptship?.  146 

"Masters"  and  "Teachers" 180 

BABYLON. 

The  antithesis  of  tho  New  Jerusalem 194 

BIRTH. 

Successive  births  of  our  various  bodies 27,  52 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWEKS  401 

Question 
No. 

Danger  of  insanity  when  coming  to  birth .-. . .     44 

Is  the  length  of  life  determined  before  birth? 47 

What  draws  an  Ego  to  a  certain  family  1 51 

Must  a  returning  spirit  go  through  Purgatory? 71 

Sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit  and  prenatal  conditions 110 

Are  souls  from  other  planets  born  here  and  vice  versa.  . .  .   155 
Miscarriages  and  Comets 157 

BLOOD. 

Why  woman  has  periodical  flow 8 

Blood;  Endogamy  and  the  age  of  the  Patriarchs 23 

Individual  blood  and  the  thymus  gland 31 

Transfusion  of  blood  as  affecting  the  Ego 43 

Why  the  Christ 's  blood  must  flow 101 

BRAIN  AND  LARYNX. 

Their  connection  and  their  cost 7 

BROTHERHOOD. 

Among  ' '  Niebelungen ' '  of  early  Atlantis 97 

How  brotherhood  will  decrease  taxation  and  increase  pros- 
perity      164 

Brotherhood  and  capital  punishment 184 

BIBLE  TEXTS  AND  TEACHINGS. 
Old  Testament: 

In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  Being 92,  164 

The  Creation 79,  156 

Archangels  and  Angels  as  factors  in  evolution 76 

A  mist  went  up  from  the  ground 97 

God  made  man  in  his  image 84 

Man  became  a  living  soul 82 

God  brought  the  animals  to  Adam  and  he  named  them. . .       3 

Adam's  rib 18,     23 

The  tree  of  Knowledge;  the  tree  of  Life  and  the  Serpent.     86 

The  Cherubim  and  the  Flaming  Sword 88 

Adam  knew  his  wife 85 

Cain  and  Abel 87 

The  longevity  of  the  Patriarchs 23 

Noah,  the  Flood  and  the  Rainbow 26 

Melchisedec ;  King  of  Salem 103 

Jacob ;  his  wives  and  sons 159 


402  EOSICEUCTAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 
No. 

Moses  and  the  Bed  Sea 26 

The  Ark  of  the  Covenant;  Aaron's  Eod  and  the  hidden 

Manna       88 

Joshua  and  the  Walls  of  Jericho 158 

They  shall  beat  their  swords  to  ploughshares 182 

Jeremiah  called  to  be  a  prophet  prior  to  birth 81 

Neiv  Testament: 

In  the  Beginning  was  the  Word 1,     27 

God  so  loved  the  World  that  He  gave  his  only  begotten 

Son   91 

Mary  said:     How  shall  I   conceive  seeing   I   know  not  a 

man   . 85,     93 

Gabriel  foretold  the  birth  of  Jesus 81 

The  Star  of  Bethlehem 94 

The  gifts  of  the  Wise  Men 95 

I  come  not  to  bring  Peace;  but  a  Sword 91 

Before  Abraham  was  I  am 96 

This  is  Elijah — Elijah  has  come  and  they  have  done  to 

him  as  they  listed 81 

Your  father  and  mine 22 

W'hosoever   looks   at   a   woman   with   lust   has   committed 

adultery   16 

All  who  came  before  me  were  thieves  and  robbers 104 

Unless  you  receive  the  Kingdom  as  a  little  child  you  can- 
not enter 105 

Go  sell  all  thou  hast  and  follow  me 183 

Take  up  thy  cross  and  follow  me 100 

Go  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature 118 

Feeding  the  multitude  with  fish 107 

Eaising  the  dead 113 

Thy  faith  has  made  rhee  whole 35 

A  prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in  his  own  country.  .      35 

They  chose  Barrabas 26 

The  two  thieves 99 

Thou  shalt  be  with  me  in  Paradise 98 

A  High  Priest  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec 103 

The  whole  Creation  is  groaning  and  travailing  in  pain ...      90 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  403 

Question 

CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINES.  No. 

The  Trinity -.-.- 75 

The  Creation 79,  156 

The  Fall 83,  85 

The  Immaculate  Conception 93 

The  Atonement 90,  91 

Everlasting  Salvation  and  Damnation 92 

Sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit 110 

Conversion 114 

Confession  and  Absolution 115 

Forgiveness  of  Sins 112 

The  Second  Advent 103 

Fall  of  Babylon  and  the  New  Jerusalem 104 

CHRISTIAN  FEASTS. 

Christmas,  Easter,  Lent,  etc 89 

The  value  of  the  Latin  Eitual 116 

The  value  of  Martyrdom 117 

CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT   184 

Criminals  made  by  other  peoples '  thoughts 16 

CONSCIENCE. 

Is  it  the  voice  of  God  or  the  Guardian  Angel 12 

CONFESSION 

And  Absolution 115 

CONVERSION 

And   hypnotism 114 

CREATION:  CREATORS. 

How  we  become  creators 1 

How  we  create  in  the  blood " 43 

The  Bible  on  Creation 79 

The  Masonic  legend  of  creation  of  man 87 

The  Creation  story  and  the  nebular  theory 156 

Man  know  thyself 174 

CONCEPTION. 

The  seed-atom  as  factor  in  conception 6 

Use  of  Astrology  in  conception 27 

The  Ego  as  a  factor  in  conception 29 

Immaculate  Conception 93 

Mystery  of  the  Grail  and  immaculate  conception 175 


404  BOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

\ 

Question 

CREMATION.  iS'o. 

Persons  buried  alive 50 

How  premature  cremation  affects  the  Spirit 53 

CROSS. 

The  two  thieves  on  the  cross 98,     99 

The  cross  symbolical  of  the  four  Kingdoms 100 

The  Cross  and  the  Lamb  as  symbol  of  Christ 100 

CHILDREN. 

Concerning  the  education  of  children 27 

Why  are  children  born  where  unwelcome? 28 

Why  are  some  marriages  barren  1 29 

Effect  of  thymus  gland  in  children 31 

Method  of  influencing  refractory  child 32 

Effect  of  vaccination  and  antitoxin 42 

Why  do  children  die? 51,     52 

Receiving  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child 105 

Prenatal  conditions  ar.d  sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit 110 

Immaculate  conception  of  children 93 

Clairvoyant  children 139 

CLAIRVOYANCE  (see  also  Initiation). 

How  will  clairvoyance  help  us  after  death? 145 

The  effect  of  marriage  upon  clairvoyance 23 

Not  sufficient  to  fix  time  of  past  events 49 

Clairvoyant  investigations  verified 67 

Trained  and  negative  Clairvoyants  compared 129,  133 

Ordinary  clairvoyants  cannot  penetrate  earth 55 

Difference  between  Clairvoyant,  Initiate  and  Adept 131 

Why  do  not  trained  Clairvoyants  submit  to  tests? 132 

How  can  coarse  people  be  clairvoyant? 133 

Why  must  trained  Clairvoyants  be  unselfish? 151 

What  is  the  difference  between  Etheric  sight;  color  vision 

and  tonal  sight? 142 

Are  all  infants  clairvoyant  ? 139 

Danger  of  crystal  gazing,  drugs  and  breathing  exercises.   148 
DEATH. 

The  Science  of  Death 53 

Does  insanity  persist  after  death? 45 

How  does  knowledge  of  post-mortem  conditions  help  us?.     46 
Are  there  seasons  and  times  in  the  Beyond? 49 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  4Q5 

Question 
No. 

Do  lamentations  seriously  affect  the  dying? 51 

What  is  the  cause  of  the  appalling  infant  mortality?.  ...  52 

Do  \ve  meet  our  loved  ones  after  death? 50 

Do  we  recognize  our  friends  after  death? 57 

What  is  the  effect  of  suicide  on  the  spirit  ? 58 

What  is  the  .effect  of  death  by  accident  or  murder? GO 

What  is  the  effect  of  capital  punishment  ? 184 

Where  are  the  dead  ? 64 

By  what  power  did  Christ  raise  the  dead? 113 

Does  the  desire  body  die  when  the  spirit  leaves  it? 122 

What  is  the  post-mortem  state  of  innocent  children? 139 

Do  elementals  affect  the  dead  ? 345 

DESIRE  WORLD. 

Are  people  sick,  hungry  or  naked  in  the  Desire  World?.  .  10 

Does  insanity  exist  in  Desire  World  ? 45 

Are  there  days  and  nights,  seasons  and  times  in  Desire 

World? 49 

DESIRE  BODY. 

Compared  with  physical  body 5 

Is  the  desire  body  subject  to  sickness,  hunger  and  cold?.  .  10 

How  our  desire  body  colors  our  view  and  deceives  us.  ...  16 

Position  of  the  desire  body  in  the  dream-state 32 

How  desire  body  of  suicide  causes  suffering 58 

Desire  body  does  not  die  when  child  dies 139 

Mr.  Hyde  and  a  ' '  double  desire  body " 187 

DISEASE  AND  ITS  CURE. 

Disease  as  a  factor  in  spiritual  progress 161 

Insanity  produced  by  crystal-gazing  and  breathing  exer- 
cises    148 

Is  the  desire  body  subject  to  disease? 10 

How  nursery  rhymes  combats  disease  in  children 27 

How  to  treat  diseas?  during  sleep 32 

The  vital  body  of  drowning  person 34 

Why  individuality  must  be  considered  in  healing 35 

Interference  with  destiny  when  treating  disease 36 

Disease  a  result  of  mental  conditions 37 

Fasting  as  a  cure  for  disease 38 

Hypnotism  as  a  cure  for  disease 39 


4CG  ROSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 
No. 

Sclerosis  or  hardening  of  the  arteries 40 

Vaccination  and  antitoxin 42 

Congenital  insanity  and  its  cause 44 

DREAMS. 

Chaotic  and  prophetic 33 

DRUNKARD. 

In   Purgatory 11 

Should  be  pointed  out  as  example  to  children 27 

Treatment  during  s'.eep 32 

Hypnotism  as  a  cure  for  drink 39 

DWELLER  ox  THE  THRESHOLD. 

A  demon  contrast  to  the  Guardian  Angel 65,  187 

EARTH. 

Impervious  to  ordinary  clairvoyance 55 

Heaven ;  a  part  of  our  planet 61 

Christ  the  indwelling  Earth  Spirit 90 

EGO. 

Influence  of  the  Ego  on  food  and  medicine 35 

When  does  the  Ego  enter  the  womb  of  mother? 6 

Ego  compared  to  a  gem  polished  in  school  of  experience.  9 

Our  duty  of  providing  bodies  for  incoming  Egos 21 

Ego  may  refuse  prospective  parents 29 

The  Ego  and  the  thymus  gland 31 

The  Ego  and  its  creative  activity  in  the  blood 43 

Ego  in  danger  of  insanity  when  entering  womb 44 

How  Ego  is  hampered  by  its  various  bodies 363 

ELEMENTALS. 

As  factors  in  spiritualistic  seances 122 

Elementals  in  shape  of  reptiles 123 

Elementals  meeting  coward  at  death 145 

EMBALMING 

And  its  effects  upon  the  spirit 53 

EPIGENESIS. 

Our  original  creative  activity  in  heaven 1 

Egos  original  creations  in  the  blood 43 

EXERCISES. 

How  they  qualify  us  for  Invisible  Helpers 46 

How  they  shorten  intervals  from  death  to  birth 48 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  407 

Question 
No. 

Their  effect  on  health;  relaxation  explained K3,  144 

Why  are  the  clay's  happenings  to  be  reviewed  in  reverse 

order  ?    150 

The  best  time  to  cxercis- 149 

Danger  of  breathing  exercises 148,  151 

EVOLUTION. 

Spirals  of  evolution 2 

Is  it  possible  to  shorten  evoUition? 48 

Our  next  step  in  evolution 76 

If  God  made  man  perfect  why  is  evolution  necessary?.  ...      84 

Prodigal  Son  and  evolution 108 

Evolution   and   atrophy  of  organs 133 

Evolution  of  the  East  and  West  compared 112,  173 

How  war  furthers  evolution 101 

FAITH.  ' 

And  scepticism  compared  as  to  effects 35 

FALL  IN  EDEN. 

What  was  the  Fall? 83 

Cherubim  ;  with  flaming  Sword  and  open  Flower 88 

Man  know  thyself  and  Salvation 174 

FERTILIZATION 

Of  ovum :  method  of 29 

FOOD. 

Food  as  a  factor  in  ageing  the  body 40 

Fasting  as  a  cure  for  disease 38 

How  overeating  makes  us  liable  to  disease 42 

How  it  benefits  animals  to  be  killed 101 

Why  not  eat  fish?     Christ  gave  it  to  people 107 

Why  was  the  fatted  calf  not  killed  for  the  elder  son?.  ..    108 

Do  we  not  take  life  when  eating  eggs,  fruit? 186 

Why  is  one  man  's  mtat  another 's  poison  ? 35 

Pork,  Cancer  and  Consumption 107 

FORCE. 

The  coming  force ;  what  will  it  be? 3 

Our  relation  to  the  intelligent  nature-forces '.     41 

How  vital  force  prevents  and-  combats  disease 42 

FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS. 

How  forgiveness  is  obtained 46 


408  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 
No. 

How  forgiveness  shortens  the  interval  from  death  to  birth  48 

Foregiveness  complementary  to  the  Law  of  Consequence.  112 

FORM. 

Origin   of 3,  171 

GENESIS. 

Is  the  Seven-day  Creation  story  true 79 

GENIUS. 

What  is  Genius  ? 13,  70 

Why  is  a  Genius  not  appreciated  till  dead? 14 

GOSPELS. 

As  formula}  of  Initiation 78 

GRAIL  (sec  Holy  Grail). 

GROUP-SPIRIT. 

How  it  prevents  cross-breeding 23 

Group-spirit  and  similarity  of  tastes  in  animals *.  . .  35 

Group-spirit  compared  to  man;  the  " living  soul" 82 

What  is  a  Group-spirit? 166 

Does  Group-spirit  die  when  animal  dies? 1G9 

GUAREIAN  ANGEL. 

Is  conscience  the  voice  of  God  or  the  Guardian  Angel?.  .  12 

Deceased  mothers  as  Guardian  Angels 64 

Guardian  Angel  the  antithesis  of  Dweller  on  Threshold. 65,  76 

HJEMOLYSIS. 

International  marriages  and  haemolysis 23,  43 

Blood-transfusion  will  produce  haemolysis  in  the  future.  ..  43 

HAPPINESS. 

Will  honesty  and  fair  dealing  here  bring  happiness  here- 
after?    15 

HEALTH. 

Of  child  affected  by  nursery  rhymes 27 

How  a  heavy  meal  endangers  health 42 

HEAVEN. 

How  we  build  our  environment  in  Heaven 173,  112,  4 

Between  Hell  and  Heaven 15 

Where  is  Heaven? 61 

When  loved  ones  are  reborn  is  there  not  sorrow  in  Heaven?  62 

Thoughtforms  of  Holy  City  in  Heaven 121 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  409 

Question 

HEREDITY.  No. 

Heredity  and  genius 13 

Heredity  and  bad  characteristics  of  parents 30 

HOLY  GRAIL. 

The  story  of 175 

HOLY  SPIRIT. 

The   sin   against 110 

HYPNOTISM. 

Hypnotism  and  sleep  compared 32 

Hypnotism  as  a  cure  for  bad  habits  and  disease 39 

Hypnotism  and  conversion  at  revivals 114 

IMMORTALITY. 

Are  there  positive  proofs  of  Immortality? 80 

INCARNATION. 

Length  of  interval  between  incarnations 4 

What  determines  the  length  of  interval  between  incarna- 
tions?     14 

What  are  the  reasons  for  change  of  sex? 19 

INDIVIDUALITY.  • 

Can  we  lose  our  individuality? 18 

Dependence  of  individuality  upon  marriage 23 

The  thymus  gland  and  individuality 31 

Individuality  as  a  factor  in  treating  disease 35 

Individuality  as  affected  by  a  misshapen  body 41 

Individual  crystals  in  blood 43 

INITIATES  AND  INITIATION  (see  Clairvoyance). 

How  initiation  shortens  time  between  death  and  rebirth.  48 

Initiation  necessary  to  penetrate  into  the  earth 55 

The  gospels  as  formulae  of  initiation 78 

The  Ark  in  Solomon's  Temple  as  symbol  of  high  Initiate.  88 

Initiation  as  factor  in  the  Second  Coming •  103 

Prodigal   Son   and   initiation 108 

Clairvoyant,  Initiate  and  Adept  compared 131 

What  is  initiation  and  why  are  only  men  initiates 134 

Why  Initiates  have  charmed  lives 164 

Man  know  thyself 174 

Mystery  of  the  Holy  Grail  and  initiation 175 

INSANITY. 

Cause  of  congenital  and  other  classes  of  insanity 44 


410  KOSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 
No. 

Does  insanity  persist  after  death? 45 

Insanity  and  consumption  from  crystal-gazing  and  breath- 
ing exercises 148 

INSTINCT. 

Why  is  instinct  more  reliable  than  reason? 163 

INVIS.IULE  HELPERS. 

Steps  towards  becoming  Invisible  Helpei 46 

Difference  between  medium  and  Invisible  Helper 329 

Helping  others  as  duty 135 

Qualifications  of  aspirants 136 

Purpose  in  leaving  the  body 137 

How  clairvoyance  helps  us  in  post-mortem  state 145 

Why  Invisible  Helper  must  be  unselfish 151 

Dweller  on  the  Threshold 65,  187 

Have  we  a  right  to  leave  the  world  to  study? 181' 

INVISIBLE  WORLD. 

The  relative  reality  of  visible  and  invisible  Worlds 152 

JEWS. 

The  lost  tribes.     Why  they  were  exiled  and  international 

marriage   26,     43 

Why  Christ  was  born  a  Jew 96 

LAW  OF  CAUSATION. 

L.  o.  C.  and  expiation  of  sin   in   Purgatory 11 

Are  we  responsible  for  our  thoughts  ? 16 

L.  o.  C.  and    sex 19 

L.  o.  C.  and  forgiveness  of  sin  in  Faust 20 

L.  o.  C.  complemented  by  doctrine  of  Forgiveness  of  sins.    112 

L.  o.  C.;  Freewill  and  medicine 36 

L.  o.  C.  drawing  an  Ego  to  a  certain  family 51 

l!.  o.  C.;  lamentations  at  deathbed  and  infant  mortality..  51 
L.  o.  C.;  war  and  accident  as  factors  in  infant  mortality.  .  52 
How  L.  o.  C.  reunites  friends  and  enemies  of  past  lives.  .  69 
L.  o.  C.  as  barrier  to  premature  spiritual  development.  . .  .  146 
Can  we  interfere  with  L.  o.  C.  by  knowledge  of  Astrology?  153 

L.  o.  C.  and  destiny  written  in  the  stars 161 

L.  o.  C.  and  Dweller  on  the  Threshold 65,  187 

LAW  OF  EEBIRTH  (see  also  Eebirth). 

L.  o.  R.  and  precession  of  the  equinox 14 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  41 1 

Question 
No. 
Are   new   souls   constantly  created   or  have   we   all   been 

reborn  ?    C6 

L.  o.  R.  reunites  old  friends  and  foes C9 

Is  L.  o.  R.  mentioned  in  the  Bible  ? 81 

LARYNX. 

Cost  of  the  brain  and  the  larynx 7 

Larynx;   the  creative  organ  of  the  future 174 

LEVITATION. 

At  spiritualistic  seances 126 

LIFE. 

Origin  of  Life 171 

Relative  length  of  life  in  heaven  and  on  earth 4 

Panorama  of  past  life  and  suffering  in  Purgatory 11 

What  determines  the  length  of  our  life? 47 

Do  we  meet  friends  of  past  lives  when  reborn? 69 

The  Tree  of  Life 86,  104 

Necessity  for  clean  life  in  acquiring  Spiritual  Sight 138 

Do  we  not  take  life  when  eating  eggs  and  fruit 186 

LUCIFER. 

The  light-bringer .86,  104 

All  who   came   before  me  were  thieves;    I  am  the   True 

Light   104 

MAGIC. 

White  and  black 140,  175 

MALE. 

Will  the  male  reabsorb  the  female? 18 

Reasons  for  change  of  sex 19 

MAN. 

The  cross  a  symbol  of  man 100 

Man  know  thyself 174 

Man  is  the  inverted  plant 100,  175 

Why  one  man 's  meat  is  another 's  poison 23 

MARRIAGE. 

Race  suicide  and  marriage 21,  28 

Soul-mates  and  marriage , 22 

Marriage  of  first  and  second  cousins 23 

Marriage  congenial  or  the  reverse  shown  by  stars 24 

Intermarriage  of  negroes,  whites  and  mongols 25 


412  KOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 
No. 

Clandestine  marriages  of  Jews  and  the  flood 26 

Why  some  marriages  are  barren 29 

MARTYRDOM. 

The  value  of  martyrdom 117 

MASONIC  LEGEND. 

Cain  and  Abel 87 

MATERIALIZATION. 

Accomplished    through    mother-love 64 

Vital  body  used  in  materialization 119 

Materialization  of  flowers 126 

MATTER. 

Christian  Science  and  Materialism  compared 172 

MEDIUMSHIP. 

Difference    between    a    trance    Medium,    a    materializing 

Medium  and  a  trained  clairvoyant 129 

Why  mediums  simulate 133 

Planc'hette-writing   127 

Crysral-^azing    148 

What  leaves  the  body  during  soul-flights 120 

Materialization  and  Icvitation 126 

Dangers  of  mediumship 130 

How  mediumship  injures  the  health 119 

MEMORY. 

Subconscious  memory  and  loss  of  memory 54 

MEMORY  OF  NATURE. 

Astrology  only  means  of  fixing  time  of  prehistoric  events.  49 

How  past  lives  are  read  in  Memory  of  Nature 70 

Memory  of  Nature  and  pscychometry 125 

MENSTRUATION. 

And  tears  effects  of  the  positive  vital  body 8 

MIND. 

How  to  cleanse  the  mind  of  evil  thoughts 17 

Mind  as  a  factor  in  health 37 

The   subconscious   mind   and   memory 54 

MISSIONARY. 

The  evil  of  the  missionary  spirit 181 

Go  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature 118 

Missionary  efforts  of  occultists  and  Labor  Unions 182 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  413 

Question 

MURDER.  No. 

Effects  on  murderer  and  victim  in  Purgatory 60 

Music. 

The  Harmony  of  the  Spheres 158 

Influence  of  nursery  rhymes  on  health 27 

Music  and  heredity 13 

Music  and  the  semicircular  canals  of  the  ear 14 

MYSTERIES. 

What  the  lesser  and  greater  mysteries  teach 55 

Eastern  and  Western  methods  contrasted 141,  180 

Mystery  of  the  Holy  Grail 175 

NATURE  FORCES. 

Are  intelligent  beings.     How  they  work 41 

NEBULAR  THEORY. 

Compared  with  the  Creation  recorded  in  the  Bible.  .  ..76,  156 

NEW  JERUSALEM. 

And  Babylon  compared 104 

NIEBELUNGEN. 

Noah,  Moses  and  the  Niebelungen 26 

Niebelungs  hoard  and  gifts  of  Wise  Men 95 

Early  Atlantis  and  Brotherhood  of  Niebelungen 97 

ORIGINAL  SEMITES. 

Marriage  among  Original  Semites  and  present  day  mar- 
riage compared 21 

The  Original  Semites  and  the  present  Jews 26 

OBSESSION. 

How  to  diagnose  it 124 

PANORAMA  OF  LIFE. 

P.  o.  L.  as  basis  of  suffering  in  Purgatory 11 

P.  o.  L.  as  factor  in  producing  infant  mortality 51,  52 

P.  o.  L.  and  the  subconscious  mind 54 

PHYSICAL  WORLD. 

Its  mission  in  Nature 3 

PHYSICAL  BODY. 

Our  most  valuable  instrument 5 

Heredity  and  the  physical  body 30 

Effect  on  the  spirit  of  deformed  body 41 

How  loss  of  the  physical  body  causes  suffering  to  suicide.  58 

How  physical  body  looked  in  Lemurian  Epoch 85 


414  ROSICRUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 

PILGRIMAGE  THROUGH  MATTER.  Xo. 

Necessity    of   pilgrimage 1,  3 

Ark  of  the  Covenant  and  pilgrimage SS 

Parable  of  Prodigal  Son  and  pilgrimage 108 

PLANETS  (see  Astrology). 

Location  of  Heaven  and  Purgatory 61 

Are  Mars,  Jupiter  and  the  other  planets  inhabited? 155 

Good  and  evil  planets 161 

The  Star  Angels  and  their  Ambassadors 162 

The  Pyramid  and  the  planets 176 

PLANT. 

Man  is  the  inverted  plant 100,  175 

POWERS  OF  DARKNESS. 

And  their  mission  in  evolution 2,  76 

PRAYER. 

For  the  dead 63 

Prayers  astrologically  directed 162 

PRECESSION  OF  THE  EQUINOX. 

And  the  Law  of  Rebirth 14 

PSYCHOMETRY     125 

PURGATORY. 

Not  a  place  of  punishment 59 

Panorama  of  Life  and  suffering  in  Purgatory 11 

The  drunkard  and  tortures  of  Tantalus 11 

Victims  of  murder  ami  accident  in  Purgatory 60 

How  suicide  suffers  in  Purgatory 58 

Purgation  compared  to  process  of  forming  solar  system.  .  59 

Everlasti ng  damnation 92 

How  shortened  or  eliminated  by  Forgiveness  of  Sins.  .46,  48 

Purgatory  and  conscience 12 

RACE  SPIRITS. 

As  a  factor  in  marriage  and  blood-transfusion . ...  43 

How  Race  Spirits  rule  the  nations 23 

REBIRTH  (see  also  Law  of  Rebirth). 

And  the  precession  of  the  equinox 14 

How  to  shorten  interval  between  earth-lives 48 

Why  are  we  ignorant  of  past  lives 65 

How  may  we  prove  the  doctrine  of  Rebirth 67 

Must  a  spirit  coming  to  rebirth  pass  through  Purgatory.  71 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  415 

Question 
No. 

The    doctrines   of    "Rebirth"    and    Transmigration   com- 
pared         72 

Is  the  Bible  authority  for  the  doctrine  of  Rebirth? 81 

What  facilitates  the  memory  of  past  lives? 139 

Do  souls  from  other  planets  come  to  birth  here  and  vice 

versa  ? 1 55 

The  ethical  necessity  for  rebirth 177 

RECORDING  ANGELS. 

What  is  the  book  of  the  Recording  Angels? 54,     12 

Are  the  Recording  Angels  individual  beings? 75 

Recording    Angels    give    to    each    nation    an   appropriate 

religion   118 

RELIGION. 

Religious  of  fear,  of  avarice,  of  love  and  of  duty 91 

Religion,  Science  and  Art  a  trinity 147 

Why  Missionaries  should  be  kept  at  home 118 

Christian  Science  and  Materialism  contrasted 172 

Rosicrucian  Philosophy  and   Orthodoxy   contrasted 177 

Rosicrucian  Philosophy  and  Theosophy  contrasted 178 

RIB. 

What  is  the  rib  taken  from  Adam 's  side? 18,     83 

RITUAL. 

Compared  with  extemporaneous  sermons 116 

ROSICRUCIANS. 

Is  the  Rosicrucian  Fellowship  movement  inspired  by  Mas- 
ters?     180 

Rosicrucian  teachings  compared  with  Orthodoxy 177 

Rosicrucian  teachings  compared  with  Theosophy 178 

SALVATION. 

Everlasting  salvation  and  damnation 92 

SEED-ATOM. 

Seed-atom  the  key  to  vibration  of  body 6 

Seed-atom  as  factor  in  conception 27 

Seed-atom  the  book  of  Recording  Angels 12 

Seed-atom  and  the  subconscious  mind 54 

Seed  atom  affecting  suicide 58 

Seed-atom  will  be  retained  by  man  in  Future , 174 


416  EOSICEUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 

SELF-MASTERY.  No. 

Our  goal  and  how  attained 9 

SEX. 

Is  the  soul  sexed 8 

The  reason  for  the  division  of  the  sexes 7,  174 

Past  methods  of  procreation 85 

Sex  and  the  Tree  of  Knowledge 86,  104 

Sex  and  sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit 110 

Immaculate  Conception 93 

Abolition  of  sex  in  1'uture 174 

Mystery  of  the  Holy  Grail  and  sex 175 

SLEEP. 

Compared  to  the  hypnotic  state 33 

The  cause  of  sleep 34 

SILVER  CORD. 

In  Trance  and  in  Death 113 

SOLAR  SYSTEM. 

Jacob,   his   wives   and   sons   symbolize   Zodiac   and   Solar 

System 159 

Purgation  accomplished   by  the  same  law  which  governs 

formation  of  a  Solar  System 59 

SOUL. 

And  sex 8 

Soul-mates  and  marriage 22 

Have  all  souls  been  reborn  or  are  new  ones  created  every 

birth?  66 

Adam  became  a  living  soul 82 

Soiil;  one  of  the  gifts  of  Wise  Men 95 

Effect  of  black  magic  on  soul 140,  148 

SOUND  (see  also  Word  and  Music}. 

Sound  as  builder  and  destroyer 158 

SPIRIT. 

Does  spirit  enter  boJly  at  conception? 6 

What  is  the  relation  of  spirit  and  matter 172 

STEAM. 

And  electricity  as  factors  in  evolution 3 

TEARS. 

And  the  positive  vit-al  body  of  woman 8 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  417 

Question 

TEMPERAMENT.  No. 

How  it  changes 9 

Temperament,  marriage  and  the  Zodiac 24 

TEMPTATION. 

Benefit  of  temptation 12 

THOUGHT. 

Creative  power  of  thought 3,  152 

Are  we  responsible  for  our  thoughts? 16 

How  the  mind  may  be  cleansed  of  evil  thoughts 17 

Have  evil  thoughts  created  venomous  reptiles? 165 

THYMUS  GLAND. 

and  individuality 31,  43 

TRANCE. 

And  Death  compared 113 

TRANSMIGRATION. 

Compared  with  the  doctrine  of  Rebirth 72 

TRINITY. 

Explained  by  light  and  color 74 

Trinity  of  Religion,  Science  and  Art 147 

VAMPIRE  AND  WEREWOLF 128 

VRIL. 

The  coming  force 3 

VITAL  BODY. 

Compared  with  physical  body 5 

v.  b.  negative  in  man,  positive  in  woman 8 

Condition  of  v.  b.  in  hypnotic  sleep 32,  39 

v.  b.  during  resuscitation  of  drowning  person 34 

Condition  of  v.  b.  after  heavy  meal 42 

v.  b.  leaves  dense  body  after  death 52 

How  premature  cremation  affects  the  v.  b 53 

The  tree  of  Life  and  the  v.  b SO 

The  v.  b.  exuded  in  materialization 119 

v.  b.  of  " sensitives"  compared   with   v.    b.    of   ordinary 

people    129 

If  an  arm  is  amputated  is  v.  b.  also  severed? 188 

WAR. 

As  a  factor  in  infant  mortality 52 

The  benefit  of  bloody  wars 101 


418  KOSICKUCIAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Question 

WEALTH.  No. 

A  help  to  advancement  or  a  hindrance? 183 

WHITE  LODGE. 

Its  relation  to  the  Kosicrucian  Order 179 

WOMAN    SUFFRAGE 185 

WORD. 

The  lost  Word .-. 8 

Th  Latin  Kitual  and  the  lost  Word 116 

How  to  find  the  lost  word 174 

Joshua  and  the  walls  of  Jericho 158 

Is  the  Bible  the  Word  of  God? 78 


AS  ABOVE,  SO  BELOW. 

The  world,  the  man  and  the  atom  are  governed  by  the  same 
law.  Our  dense  earth  is  now  in  its  4TH  stage  of  consolidation. 
The  mind,  the  desire  body  and  the  vital  body  are  less  solid  than 
our  4TH  vehicle,  the  dense  body.  In  the  atomic  weight  of  the 
chemical  elements  there  is  a  similar  arrangement.  The  4TH 
group  marks  the  acme  of  density. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  EARTH 


**&&^&£ 


DIAGRAM  2, 


THE  SEVEN  WORLDS 

WORLD 

Consisting  °^\7  Regions. 

OF  GOD 

^2£^ 

WORLD 

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SPIRITS 

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WORLD  OF 

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DIVINE  SPIRIT 

highest  spiritual  influence  in  man. 

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WORLD  OF 

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Life 

LIFE   SPIRIT 

second  aspect  of  the  threefold  spirit  in  man. 

Spirit        o 

7th  Region  contains  the  germinal  idea  of  form 

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in  mineral,  plant,  animal  and  man. 

£ 

I     REGION  OF 

6th    Region   contains   germinal    idea   of   life    in 

Human       I 

3     ABSTRACT 
£       THOUGHT 

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h 

aspect  of  spirit  in  man. 

O 

4th   Region  contains  the  archetypal  forces  and 

3     REGION   OF 
tt     CONCRETE 

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through  which  the  spirit  mirrors  itself  in  mat- 
ter. 

z 
Mind         J 

9     THOUGHT 

3rd    Region  archetypes  of  desire  and  emotion. 

M 

> 

2nd   Region   archetypes   of  universal   vitality. 

r 

1st  Region  archetypes  of  form. 

j 

7th  Region  Soul-Power  1 

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6th   Region  Soul-Light     I                         Attraction 

5th   Region  Soul-Life.      J 

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4th  Regfon  Feeling! 
(.Indifference. 

Body 

3rd  Region  Wishes                                  \ 

£ 

2nd  Region  Impressionability              VRepulsion. 

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1st  Region  Passion  and  Low  DesireJ 

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Body         r 

4th  Region  Chemical  ether,  medium  for  assimi- 

^ 

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£      REGION 

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DIAGRAM  15 


THE  SEVEN  DAYS  OF  CREATION 


AND 

THE  FOUR  GREAT  INITIATIONS 

ORDINARY      HUMANITY      PURSUES  THE    SPIRAL  PATH 
THE  SNITIATE  GOES  THE  STRAIGHT  AND  NARROW  WAY  THAT  LEADS 
TO 


SATURN -PERIOD 

(SATURDAY) 

VIOLET 


VENUS-PERIOD 

(FRIDAY) 

RED 


MOON -PERIOD 

(MONDAY) 

BLUE 


EARTH  - 

MERCURY -HALF 
(WEDNESDAY)-YELLOW 


VULCAN-PERIOD 

THEWEEK 

(EMBRACING  WITHE  DAYS) 

WHITE 
(INCLUDING  ALLTHECOIORS) 


SUN- PERIOD 

(SUNDAY) 

INDIGO 


JUPITER- PERIOD 
(THURSDAY) 
ORANGE 


-  PERIOD 

MARS  -HALF 
(TUESDAY)  GREEN 


THE  WAYOF  INITIATION 
THERE  WAS  NO  INITIATION  PRIOR  TO  THE  END  OF  THE 

MARS    HALF    OF    THE    EART  H  PERIOD  .  THE    LESSER    MYS- 
TERIES  EMBRACE    HUMAN  EVOLTION   IN  THE  MERCURY 

HALF     OF      THE      EARTH-PERIOD 


There  was  a  time,  even  as  late  as  Greece,  when  Religon,  Art 
and  Science  were  taught  unitedly  in  the  Mystery-temples.  But  it 
was  necessary  to  the  better  development  of  each  that  they 
should  separate  for  a  time. 

Religion  held  sole  sway  in  the  so-called  "dark  ages."  Dur- 
ing that  time  it  bound  both  Science  and  Art  hand  and  foot. 
Then  came  the  period  of  the  Benaissance  and  Art  came  to  the 
fore  in  all  its  branches.  Beligion  was  strong  as  yet,  however, 
and  Art  was  only  too  often  prostituted  in  the  service  of  Eeligion. 
Last  came  the  wave  of  modern  Science,  and  with  iron  hand  it 
has  subjugated  Eeligion. 

It  was  a  detriment  to  the  world  when  Eeligion  shackled 
Science.  Ignorance  and  Superstition  caused  untold  woe,  never- 
theless man  cherished  a  lofty  spiritual  ideal  then;  he  hoped  for 
a  higher  and  better  life.  It  is  infinitely  more  disastrous  that 
Science  is  killing  Eeligion,  for  now  even  Hope,  the  only  gift 
of  the  gods  left  in  Pandora  's  box,  may  vanish  before  Materialism 
and  Agnosticism. 

Such  a  state  cannot  continue.  Eeaction  must  set  in.  If 
it  does  not,  Anarchy  will  rend  the  Cosmos.  To  avert  a  calamity 
Religion,  Science  and  Art  must  reunite  in  a  higher  expression 
of  the  Good,  the  True  and  the  Beautiful  than  obtained  before 
the  separation. 

Coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before,  and  when  the  Great 
Leaders  of  human itv  saw  the  tendency  towards  ultra-materialism 
which  is  now  rampant  in  the  Western  World,  they  took  certain 
steps  to  counteract  and  transmute  it  at  the  auspicious  time. 
The  did  not  wish  to  kill  the  budding  Science  as  the  latter  has 
strangled  Beligion,  for  they  saw  the  ultimate  good  which  will 
result  when  an  advanced  Science  has  again  become  the  co-worker 
of  Eeligion. 

A  spiritual  Eeligion.  however,  cannot  blend  with  a  materialistic 
Science  any  more  than  oil  can  mix  with  water.  Therefore  steps 
were  taken  to  spiritualize  Science  and  make  Eeligion  scientific. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  a  high  spiritual  teacher,  having  the 
symbolical  name  Christian  Eosenkreuz — Christian:  Eose:  Cross — 
appeared  in  Europe  to  commence  that  work.  He  founded  the 
mysterious  Order  of  Eosicrucians  with  the  object  of  throwing 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS 

occult  light  upon  the  misunderstood  Christian  Eeligion  and  to 
explain  the  mystery  of  Life  and  Being  from  the  scientific 
standpoint  in  harmony  with  Eeligion. 

In  the  past  centuries  the  Kosicrucians  have  worked  in  secret, 
but  now  the  time  has  come  for  giving  out  a  definite,  logical  and 
ssquential  teaching  concerning  the  origin,  evolution  arid  future 
development  of  the  world  and  man,  showing  both  the  spiritual 
and  the  sr-^ntific  aspect;  a  teaching  which  makes  no  statements 
that  are  not  supported  by  reason  and  logic.  Such  is  the  teaching 
promulgated  by  the  Rosicrucian  Fellowship.  It  satisfies  the  mind 
by  giving  clear  explanations  and  neither  begs  nor  evades  ques- 
tions. Jt  holds  out  a  reasonable  solution  to  all  mysteries — But. 
and  this  is  a  very  important  "But,"  The  Eosicrucian  Christianity 
does  not  regard  the  intellectual  understanding  of  God  and  the 
Universe  as  an  end  in  itself.  Far  from  it.  The  greater  the 
intellect,  the  greater  the  danger  of  its  misuse.  Therefore  the 
scientific  teaching  is  only  given  in  order  th  t  man  may  believe 
find  start  to  li*)*!  the  religious  life  which  j  .me  can  bring  true 
Fellowship. 


Seventh  Edition 
600   pp.   cloth  Price   $2.00,   postfree. 

This  remarkable  book  by  Max  Heindel  marks  an  entirely 
new  departure  in  mystic  literature. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Western  Wisdom 
Teaching  concerning  Life  and  Being  which  the  Rosicrucians 
have  guarded  for  centuries,  is  here  given  by  an  authorized 
messenger,  for  it  is  held  that  the  world  is  ready  to  receive 
this  advanced  science  of  the  soul,  the  religious  philosophy  of 
the  Aquarian  Age,  now  at  hand.  The  existing  scul-hunger 
and  the  satisfying  nature  of  the  Rosicrucian  teachings  are 
equally  well  attested  by  the  phenomenal  sale  of  this  great 
book,  and  many  thousands  of  letters  received  by  the  author 
from  grateful  students  located  all  over  the  world,  who  testify 
that  they  there  found  what  they  have  long  sought  elsewhere 
in  vain. 

We  give  herewith  some  headings  of  chapters  and  sub- 
divisions as  a  slight  indication  of  what  is  contained  in  this 
mine  of  mystic  light  and  knowledge. 

Part  I. 

The  Visible  and  Invisible  Worlds,  The  Four  Kingdoms,  Man 
and  the  Method  of  Evolution.  Spirit,  Soul  and  Body; 
Thought,  Memory  and  Soul-growth.  The  conscious,  subcon- 
scious and  superconscious  mind.  The  science  of  death,  the 
beneficence  of  purgatory,  life  in  heaven.  Re-birth  and  the 
Law  of  Consequence. 

Part  II. 

The  Scheme  of  Evolution.  The  Path  of  Evolution.  The 
Work  of  Evolution.  Genesis  and  Evolution  of  Our  Solar 
System.  Chaos  the  seed-ground  of  Cosmos,  Birth  of  the 
Planets,  Planetary  Spirits.  Evolution  of  the  Earth.  The 
Moon,  the  eighth  sphere  of  retrogression.  Occult  Analysis 
of  Genesis.  The  Nebular  Theory. 
Part  III. 

Christ  and  His  Mission.  The  Star  of  Bethlehem,  the  Mys- 
tery of  Golgotha  and  the  cleansing  blood.  Future  Devel- 
opment and  Initiation.  Alchemy  and  Soul-growth.  The 
Method  of  Acquiring  First-hand  Knowledge.  Western 
Methods  for  Western  People.  Esoteric  Training.  Christian 
Rosenkreuz  and  the  Order  of  Rosicrucians.  The  Rosicru- 
cian Initiation. 


AN  ELEMENTARY  EXPOSITION 

BY  MAX  HEINDEL 
200  pp.  cloth.         $1.50  postfree. 


ts  ts  %  Po0k  for 


who  is  seeking  a  solution  to  the  Great  Mystery  called  Life,. 
but  lacks  leisure  to  wade  through  volumes  of  metaphysical 
speculations.  The  lucid  and  logical  explanations  carry  con- 
viction —  they  bear 

THE  STAMP  OF  TRUTH 

Nevertheless,  the  language  is  so  simple,  clear  and  devoid  of 
technicalities  that  a  child  can  understand  its  message.  It 
is  there  fore  specially  suited  to  beginners,  but  advanced 
students  will  find 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIGHT 

COLOR  AND  CONSCIOUSNESS, 

and  similar  subjects  of  vital  interest. 


ANCIENT  TRUTHS  IN  MODERN  DRESS 
Price  lOc  Each,  Postfree 

No.  1.  The  Riddle  of  Life  and  Death. 

No.  2.  Where  Are  the  Dead? 

No.  3.  Spiritual   Sight  and  the   Spiritual  Worlds. 

No.  4.  Sleep,    Dreams,    Trance,    Hypnotism,    Mediumship 

and  Insanity. 

No.  5.  Death  and  Life  in  Purgatory. 

No.  6.  Life  and  Activity  in  Heaven. 

No.  7.  Birth  a   Fourfold   Event. 

No.  8.  The   Science  of  Nutrition,  Health  and  Protracted 

Youth. 

No.  9.  The  Astronomical  Allegories  of  the  Bible. 

No.  10.  Astrology;   Its   Scope  and   Limitations. 

No.  11.  Spiritual   Sight  and  Insight. 

No.  12.  Parsifal. 

No.  13.  The   Angels   as   Factors  in  Evolution. 

No.  14.  Lucifer,  Tempter  or  Benefactor? 

No.  15.  The     Mystery     of    Golgotha     and    the     Cleansing 

Blood. 

No.  16.  The  Star  of  Bethlehem;  A  Mystic  Fact. 

No.  17.  The  Mystery  of  the  Holy  Grail. 

No.  18.  The   Lord's   Prayer. 

No.  19.  The   Coming  Force;  Vril  or  What? 

No.  20.  Fellowship  and  the  Coming  Race. 

These  lectures  are  particularly  suitable  for  beginners. 
Read  consecutively,  they  give  a  comprehensive  outline  of  our 
philosophy. 

THEY  FIT  THE  POCKET 

?nd  allow  a  busy  man  to  utilize  time  on  cars  en  route  to  or 
from   business. 

GIVE  ONE  TO  A  FRIEND 
It  is  an  inexpensive  and  a  helpful  gift. 


By  MAX  HEINDEL 

An  Esoteric  Exposition  of  the  Cosmic  Facts  underly- 
ing these  two  Great  Institutions,  as  de- 
termined by  Occult  Investigation 


Describes  the  influence  of  each  of  these  institu- 
tions upon  the  evolution  of  mankind  and  the  ultimate 
destiny  of  each. 

The  building  of  King  Solomon's  Temple  has  al- 
ways remained  a  theme  of  great  interest ;  but  add  to 
this  the  story  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  and  the  real 
builder  of  the  Temple,  Hiram  Abiff,  so  seldom  read 

of  in  current  literature,  and  truly  one  is  confronted 
by  a  story  of  exquisite  and  transcendent  interest. 

To  have  read  this  book  is  to  have  delved  deep  into 
the  past  and  to  have  gained  a  glimpse  into  the  mys- 
teries that  have  puzzled  philosophers  in  ages  gone  by. 
Only  a  Mystic  and  a  trained  Seer  who  has  the  divine 
gift  of  reading  the  Akashic  Kecords  of  the  past  could 
give  such  a  lucid  description  of  this  great  subject. 


THIS  BOOK  SHOULD  BE  IN  EVERY  MASON'S 
LIBRARY 


Bound  in  cloth.  98  pages.  Price  $1.00 


of 

HOW  MADE  AND  UNMADE 


The  Occult  Effect  of 
Our  Emotions 

Prayer— 
A  Magic  Invocation 

The  Scientific  Method 
of  Spiritual  Unf  oldment 

BY  MAX  HEINDEL 


180  pp-  Cloth  Bound 
Two  Dollars  Postfree 


These  four  books  in  one  volume  are  the 
collected  fruits  of  a  Mystic's  investigations 
showing  the  unseen  forces  which  shape  our 

destiny. 

This  valuable  information  is  given  for  the 

first  time  in  book  form. 


i\\t 


BY  MAX  HEINDEL 

Faust,  Parsifal,  the  Ring  of  the  Niebe- 
lung,  Tannhauser,  Lohengrin 

0—         —  oOo—         —0 

The  Secret  Teachings  concealed  in  the  Great  Myths 
as  embodied  in  the  major  operas  are  here  interpreted. 
The  Evolutionary  Plan  and  Methods  of  Spiritual  Uii- 
foldment  are  shown  to  lie  hidden  in  the  imagery  of 
Folk  Tales.  The  treatment  of  this  subject  adapts  the 
book  to  the  use  of  the  Musician  and  Student  of  Folk- 
lore as  well  as  to  the  Occultist. 

0—          —  oOo—          —0 

Bound  in  Cloth  with  the  usual  three  colored 

gold  covers  used  on  all  Hosicrucian 

'Fellowship  Bocks. 

$2.00  Postfrea 


0f  (Elmstmas 

BY  MAX  HEIXDEL 

Five  dissertations  in  one  volume,  upon  this  most 
interesting  Subject  of  CHRISTMAS  from  the  Mys- 
tical Viewpoint,  Showing  the  Occult  Significance  of 
this  Great  Event. 


-OQO- 


Spiritual  Light— The  New  Element  and  The  N.ew 

Substance. 

The  Annual  Sacrifice  of  Christ. 
The  Mystic  Midnight  Sun. 
The  Mission  of  Christ. 
The  Festival  of  the  Fairies. 
Very  Attractively  Bound  in  Heavy  Paper. 

50  pageSt  $1.00  Postfree. 


RAYS  FROM  THE  ROSE  CROSS 

A  Monthly  Magazine  of 

MYSTIC  LIGHT 
Subscription  $2.00   per  year 


General  Contents 

The  Mystic  Light  Department  is  devoted  to  articles  on 
Occultism,  Mystic  Masonry,  Esoteric  Christianity 
and  similar  Spiritual  Subjects. 

The  Question  Department  is  designed  to  give  further 
light  upon  the  various  subjects  dealt  with  in  the 
different  departments. 

The  Astral  Ray  Department  gives  Cosmic  Light  on 
Life's  Problems.  So  far  as  space  permits  horo- 
scopes of  subscribers'  children  are  read  each  month. 
These  readings  show  the  hidden  faults  and  talents 
to  help  the  parents  bring  out  the  best  in  their 
charges. 

Vocational  Readings  for  young  men  and  women  are 
given  to  show  them  the  sphere  in  the  world's  work 
for  which  they  are  best  fitted. 

Studies  in  the  Rosicrucian  Cosmo-Conception.  Our 
Origin,  Evolution  and  Ultimate  Destiny  are  relig- 
iously, reasonably  and  scientifically  explained  in 
this  department. 

Chtidrens'  Department.  Letters  and  Lessons  for  the 
Children. 

Nutrition  and  Health.  In  this  department  articles  on 
diet  teach  how  to  build  bodies  wisely  and  well. 

The  Rosy-Cross  Healing  Circle.  Its  meetings  and  their 
results. 


OJlfrist 


BY  ANXET  C.  RICH 
30  Cents  Postfree. 

The  idea  that  India  is  the  main  repository  of 
occult  knowledge  is  held  by  many  who  have  for- 
saken the  Christian  Religion  to  embrace  Hindu- 
ism. "Christ  or  Budda?"  shows  most  clearly 
that 

TUB  WESTERN  WISDOM  TEACHINGS 

throw  a  light  upon  the  problems  of  life  which  is 
much  more  intense,  far-reaching  and  soul  sat- 
isfying in  every  respect.  A  partial  list  of  con- 
tents will  indicate  its  scope. 

Involution,  Evolution  and  Epigenesis. 

Trance. 

Dreamless  sleep. 

The  waking  State. 

Dreams. 

The  Mystery  of  Blood 

The  Mystery  of  Sex. 

The  Mystery  of  Death. 

The  Christ  of  the  East. 

The  Christ  of  the  West. 


of 


AN  OCCULT  STORY 
BY  PRENTISS  TUCKER 

This  is  a  fascinating  story  of  a  young  mystVs 
experiences  during  the  Great  War,  both  np-m  the  seen 
and  the  unseen  planes.  The  author  possesses  great 
aptitude  for  portraying  conditions  upon  the  super- 
physical  planes  so  that  the  layman  can  form  a  con- 
crete conception  regarding  them. 
168  Pages  Cloth  Bound  $1.50  postfree. 


A  few  chapter   headings   are   appended   to  give   a 
better  idea  of  the  contents : 

A  Visit  to  the  Invisible  Planes. 

A  Sergeant's  Experience  after  "Passing  Out." 

A  Soul  Flight. 

Back  to  Earth — A  Pretty  Nurse. 

Helping  a  Slain  Soldier  to  Comfort  His  Mother. 

An  Experience  With  Nature  Spirits. 

A  Crisis  in  Love. 

A  Study  of  Auras. 


irimtttftc 

By  MAX  HEINDEL 


Fourth  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged 

WITH    MAX    HEINDEL  *S   PORTRAIT 

198  pp.     Bound  in  Cloth.     $1.25  Post  paid 
A  complete  textbook  on  the  art  of  erecting  a  hor- 
oscope, making  the  process  simple  and  easy  for  begin- 
ners.   It  also  includes  a 

Philosophic  Encyclopedia 

and 

Tables  of  Planetary  Hours 

The  Philosophic  Encyclopedia  fills  a  long  felt  want 
of  both  beginners  and  advanced  students  for  infor- 
mation concerning  the  underlying  reasons  for  astro- 
logical dicta.  It  is  a  mine  of  knowledge  arranged  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  be  instantly  accessible. 

The  Tables  of  Planetary  Hours  enable  one  to  select 
the  most  favorable  time  for  beginning  new  enter- 
prises. 

The  unparalleled  merits  of  this  book  have  been 
amply  attested  by  many  thousands  of  enthusiastic 
students  who  have  bought  the  first  three  editions. 

No  astrological  student  can  afford  to  be  without  it. 


of  tftlp> 


BY  MAX  HEINDEL  AND  AUGUSTA  Foss  HEINDEL 

Third  Edition 
700  pp.  Cloth.  $2.50  Post  Paid. 

This  book  is  set  in  a  most  attractive  style,  printed 
on  fine  paper,  with  extra  durable  binding,  the  cover 
stamped  in  gold  and  colors  like  other  Rosicmcian  text- 
books. The  contents  are  unique,  including  a  number 
of  articles  on  the  philosophy  of  Astrology. 

The  contents  are  arranged  according  to  a  very  sim- 
ple, definite  system  and  with  marginal  symbols  which 
will  enable  the  student  to  turn  instantly  to  the  para- 
graph containing  the  information  wanted. 

There  are  many  non-technical  articles  dealing  with 
the  philosophical  aspect  of  Astrology  which  will  appeal 
to  all  occult  students  regardless  of  whether  they  under- 
stand casting  a  horoscope  or  not. 

The  general  reading  of  the  natal  horoscope  is  thor- 
oughly elucidated  in  all  phases. 

A  very  simple  method  of  progressing  the  horo- 
scope and  predicting  events  is  given. 

Last,  but  not  least  is  the  Medical  Astrology  and 
guide  to  Diagnosis  of  Disease,  covering  about  200  pages 
and  illustrated  by  36  horoscopes,  each  indicating  sever- 
al diseases. 

The  system  there  explained  is  based  upon  the  ex- 
perience of  the  authors,  gained  during  an  extensive 
practice  of  many  years,  during  which  time  they  have 
successfully  diagnosed  disease  in  many  thousands  of 
horoscopes,  foretold  crises  and  indicated  preventive  or 
remedial  measures. 


I860  TO  DATE,    PRICE,  25c  EACH  YEAR 

The  increasing  difficulty  experienced  by  Astrolo- 
gers in  obtaining  Ephemerides  has  induced  us  to 
enter  the  field  and  produce 

A  Better  Ephemeris 

AT  HALF  THE  PRICE  Now  CHARGED  BY  OTHERS 

A  glance  at  this  publication  will  at  once  show  the 
Astrologer  a  number  of  advantages  in  our  arrange- 
ment. The  times  and  places  of  New  Moons,  Full 
Moons  and  Eclipses  are  plainly  marked,  also  the 
Moon's  Node.  Tables  of  Logarithms  are  given  for  24 
hours. 

The  type  is  as  large  as  used  in  this  book,  the  print 
is  clear  and  beautiful.  It  will  save  eye  strain. 


SIMPLIFIED 


Latitudes  25  to  60  Degrees,  Inclusive 

Volume  1.  Volume  2.  Volume  3. 

25-36  degrees          37-48  degrees          49-60  degrees 


WITH  LONGITUDES  and  LATITUDES 

of  about 
FIFTEEN  HUNDRED  CITIES  OF  THE  WORLD 


These  Tables  of  Houses  are  printed  in  size  and  style 
uniform  with  our  Simplified  Scientific  Ephemeris; 
large  type,  clear  print  and  fine  paper. 

A  12-page  list  (double  column)  gives  the  latitudes 
and  longitudes  of  most  cities  of  fair  size  in  Europe, 
Asia,  Africa,  Australia  and  South  America,  also  Amer- 
ican cities  of  ten  thousand  and  over. 

By  our  original  simplified  system  we  have  construct- 
ed these  Tables  so  that  with  them  a  figure  is  calculated 
for  South  latitude  by  the  same  method  and  with  the 
same  ease  as  a  figure  is  cast  for  North  latitude. 

These  Tables  cover  the  two  most  densely  populated 
belts  of  the  World,  including  the  greater  part  of  the 
United  States  and  continental  Europe,  South  America, 
South  Africa,  Australia  and  New  Zealand. 


— 50  cents  each  Post  Paid — 


The  set  of  Ephemerides  for  60  years,  bound 
in  cloth,  3  volumes,  $17.75  postfree.  (From  1860 
to  1922. 


-oOo- 


This  is  a  condensed  record  form,  particularly 
adapted  to  rapid  and  accurate  work.  It  saves 
its  small  cost  many  fold  in  time  conservation  and 
avoidance  of  uncertainty. 

15c  Per  Dozen 


-oOo- 


Printed  on  good  bond  paper,  letter  sixe  8^x11 
inches,  with  or  without  index  for  aspects,  as 
ordered — lOc  per  dozen;  35c  for  50,  or  65c  per 
100. 


BY  MAX  HEIXDEL 
15  Cents  Postfree 

The  title  indicates  sufficiently  the  scope  of 
the  book. 

It  is  direct  and  to  the  point  like  all  the  writ- 
ings of  this  author. 


-oOo- 


BY  MAX  HEINDEL 

Many  good  Astrologers  are  lost  to  the  world 
because  people  gifted  with  the  intuitional  ability 
to  read  a  horoscope  are  usually  poor  mathema- 
ticians. When  our  Simplified  Calculation  Forms 
are  used  in  conjunction  with  Simplified  Scien- 
tific Astrology,  there  is  no  mental  strain ;  the 
student  has  only  to  fill  in  the  figures  in  blank 
spaces  provided,  and  before  he  realizes  it  the 
horoscope  is  cast.  15c  each,  4  for  50e. 


-IN- 


CHRISTIAN  MYSTICISM  AND  ASTROLOGY 

Christian  Mysticism :  A  correspondence  course  of 
twelve  lessons  upon  the  Rosicrucian  Philosophy,  using 
the  Cosmo-Conception  by  Max  Heindel,  as  a  textbook. 
This  philosophy  gives  a  logical  analysis  of  the  origin, 
evolution,  and  future  development  of  the  world  and 
man,  showing  both  the  spiritual  and  scientific  aspects. 
It  is  entirely  Christian,  aiming  to  make  religion  a 
living  factor  in  the  world  and  to  lead  to  Christ  those 
who  cannot  reach  Him  by  faith  alone. 

This  course  is  open  to  all  who  are  interested. 

Astrology :  We  want  to  help  you  to  help  others, 
and  for  that  reason  we  have  instituted  a  correspond- 
ence course  in  Astrology.  Astrology  is  to  us  a  phase 
of  religion,  a  Divine  Science.  We  teach  it  to  others  on 
condition  that  they  will  not  prostitute  it  for  gain. 

Anyone  who  is  not  engaged  in  fortune  telling  or 
similar  methods  of  commercializing  spiritual  knowl- 
edge may  be  admitted  to  this  course. 

Correspondence  course  lessons  are  furnished  in 
French,  German,  Spanish,  Holland  Dutch,  and  Ital- 
ian. The  letters  written  individually  to  the  students, 
however,  are  in  English,  since  we  have  no  professional 
interpreter. 

— SECRETARY- 
Rosicrucian  Fellowship Oceanside,  California. 


Foreign  Publications 

Foreign  languages  are  essential  to  the  Invisible 
Helper.  He  who  aspires  to  lead  a  life  of  service  and 
compassion,  in  the  invisible  worlds,  is  of  greater  use 
if  he  can  comfort  those  speaking  other  languages  be- 
sides his  own.  It  behooves  us,  then  to  cultivate  the 
linguistic  faculty.  The  following  books  in  foreign 
languages  are  useful  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  student  as 
well  as  to  those  native  to  the  language 


We  can  supply  the  following  of  our  publications  in 
Spanish. 

The  Rosicrucian  Cosmo-Conception,  our  textbook, 
indispensable  to  those  interested  in  the  teachings  of 
the  Great  Fraternity.  3  Volumes.  Price  $3.00. 

The  Rosicrucian  Philosophy  in  Questions  and  An- 
swers, which  contains  information,  not  obtainable  else- 
where in  our  literature.  3  Volumes.  Price  $3.00. 
The  Twenty  Lectures,  for  titles  of  which  see 

English    section.     Complete    set    $3.00.     Single 

copies  20c  each. 


At  the  present  time  we  only  offer  the  Simplified 
Scientific  Astrology  in  this  language,  price  75 c.  We 
expect  soon  to  be  able  to  place  011  the  market  the 
French  edition  of  the  ^  Cosmo-Conception."  Watch 
for  announcements. 
Rosicrucian  Fellowship  -  -  Oceanside,  California. 


Translations  of  the  following  of  Mr.  Heindel's 
books  are  now  obtainable  in  this  language  and  may 
be  purchased  from  The  Rosicrucian  Fellowship, 
Oc:ianside,  California. 


The  Rosicrucian  Cosmo-Conception,  our  textbook 
is  valuable  to  all  students  of  the  occult.  Printed  on 
heavy  eggshell  paper,  in  good  type.  Price  $3.00. 


The  Rosicrucian  Mysteries,  "The  book  for  the  busy 
man."    Price  $2.00. 


Simplified  Scientific  Astrology,  giving  a  short  yet 
accurate  method  of  .casting  a  horoscope,  and  contain- 
ing an  astrological  cyclopedia.  Price  $2.00. 


The  Message  of  the  Stars,  the  best  organized  and 
most  useable  treatise  upon  the  judgment  of  the  radical 
chart,  diagnosis  of  disease,  and  progressing  the  horo- 
scope, on  the  market.  Price  $3.50. 


Rosicrucian  Fellowship Oceanside,  California. 


Manual  for  the  Rosicrucian  Aspirant,  is  a  com- 
pilation from  Mr.  Heindel's  writings  taken  from  The 
Cosmo-Conception,  the  Rosicrucian  Mysteries  and 
similar  works.  Price  $1.50 

The  pamphlet,  Why  I  am  a  Rosicrucian  by  the 
founder  of  the  Rosicrucian  Fellowship  may  be  pro- 
cured for  the  price  of  ten  cents. 


Jwtch 


The  Cosmo-Conception  has  recently  been  translated 
into  Dutch.  Printed  on  heavy  paper,  in  large  print, 
it  sells  for  $3.00. 

The  pamphlets,  "How  the  Rosicrucians  Heal  the 
Sick,"  explaining  the  method  of  spiritual  healing,  and 

"Fundamentals  of  Natural  Dietetics,"  showing  how 
to  keep  young  and  well  by  a  scientific  method  of  diet, 
sell  for  10  cents  each. 


(Earning 


The  Rosicrucian  Cosmo-Conception  has  been  trans- 
lated into  French,  Italian,  and  Swedish,  and  is  only 
awaiting  publication.  We  hope  soon  to  have  these 
editions  in  our  possession. 

Questions  and  Answers  in  German. 

Translations  are  under  way  in  Russian  and  Portu- 
guese. 
Rosicrucian  Fellowship  -   -  Oceanside,  California. 


r 


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